Doesn't Ring a Bell
by Mothball-Milkshake
Summary: Just a humouress fic following the Marauders through fifth year and beyond. Warning - Contains soapy frying pans.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer - This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.**

_A/N – Previously this fic was at , but I have since gotten tired of the whole process of uploading it there._

It was 6 am on Christmas morning at Hogwarts and everyone was still asleep. Everyone, that is, but Sirius Black, who was hiding behind his bed and slowly levitating a bucket of ice cold water above the bed of his best friend, James Potter. A slightly evil grin crept onto his face as he took away the charm, causing the water AND the bucket (an old fashioned, metal one) to fall on James. James sat bolt upright, sputtering and looking around for the culprit. Sirius tried as hard as he could to keep silent but he just couldn't help but let out a whoop of triumph.

"Sirius Orion Black!" James shouted as he jumped out of bed and chased Sirius around the room, running into Remus Lupin's bed and waking him up quite rudely. James finally caught Sirius, who was in a fit of laughter and too weak to get up. The final Marauder, Peter Pettigrew, woke up to the sound of James attempting to choke Sirius with a scarf. After the novelty of seeing Sirius turning a brilliant shade of purple wore off, Remus split them up using a nearby fire poker.

Sirius froze where he was; he was deathly afraid of fire pokers. James, not thinking it would be fair to keep choking him in this petrified state, released the scarf. Sirius stood up, rubbing his neck, and scowled at James, who just scowled right back.

"If you hadn't tipped water on me then that would never have happened!" he told Sirius, who pouted.

"I was just trying to wake you up so we could see Evans' face when she sees the Christmas gift we left for her!" James forgot about being mad at Sirius and both of their faces cracked into identical evil grins.

"Well she won't see it yet; it's six in the bloody morning!" Remus pointed out, ever the voice of reason. Peter was looking between the other three Marauders with a puzzled look on his face (nothing new about that).

"What gift?" He obviously hadn't been let in on the prank.

"Just wait and see..." said Sirius mysteriously...

* * * * *

"AHHHHHHHHHHHH!" A scream broke the silence of the castle, making a few birds take flight from the trees outside. The person doing the screaming was Lily Evans, who had just opened the Marauders' 'gift', a charm which turned her hair almost the same shade of purple as Sirius's face had been earlier that morning, and made her teeth grow into great yellow fangs. The best part was the fact that the charm wouldn't wear off until 6 o' clock that evening, and any attempt to remove it would only make it worse. The Marauders fell about themselves laughing, falling out from behind the chair they were hiding behind.

"You..." Lily stormed up to James, who looked ashamed (and a little confused, as the prank was Sirius's idea). "I HATE YOU, JAMES POTTER!" she yelled, and James was surprised to see that she was crying.

"Evans, wait!" He tried to apologize but she had already run up to the girls' dormitory. He attempted to run after her, unaware that the staircase would turn into a giant slide if a boy approached. He looked up at Remus and Sirius from his newly assumed spot on the floor with a bewildered look on his face. "You didn't tell me it would do that," he accused.

"You didn't ask, mate," said Sirius with a huge grin plastered on his - as the girls would have said, 'gorgeous' - face.

"Nor would we have had time, you ran off so fast," said Remus, who was also quite good looking, although he often looked tired.

"Forget it..." he muttered, getting to his feet. "Evans!" he called up the staircase. One of the other girls came down a few seconds later.

"She says sod off!" she spat, glaring at James, before walking straight out of the common room, slamming the portrait behind her (which earned a fair amount of protest from the Fat Lady).

"She can't stay up there forever," James mumbled to himself, "she has to _eat_ doesn't she?" It wasn't really a question. Sirius looked on in disbelief.

"Prongs, what do you care if Evans is upset?"

"One would **think...** that James here fancies Evans," stated Remus in an amused sort of way.

"Fancies!? What _are _you talking about Moony?" James was drawn away from his spot at the bottom of the girls' staircase to ask this question in bemusement.

"Prongs, fancying somebody is when you want to snog them senseless, shag them silly and any other romantic junk that girls love," said Sirius knowledgably.

"Don't be silly. Fancying someone isn't just snogging and shagging. It's when you want to be with that person, just to see them smile if something amuses them, to hear them laugh, to hold them if they're sad," declared Remus (who was always sentimental). James looked disgusted.

"But I don't want to do any of those things with Evans."

"Suit yourself," said Sirius, "but Evans is quite good looking, and she's _stacked._"

"Sirius!" protested Remus. Lily _was_ his friend after all.

"I say it with great respect to Evans!" added Sirius hastily. "And her chest," he added under his breath so that only James could hear him. This threw James into a coughing fit that made Peter ask him if he was alright, and tell him that if he was sick maybe he should go see Madam Pomfrey.

* * * * *

After reassuring Peter that James was **not** dying, the Marauders set about opening their own gifts.

Sirius got a huge box of Honeydukes chocolate from Peter, Remus and James, who hadn't been able to think of anything else to get him, and a safety pin from his mother, enclosed within a note.

_Maybe you can use this to stab that half blooded, part human werewolf friend of yours multiple times, and then use it on yourself._

"Well that is just _lovely,_" drawled James sarcastically, having read the note over Sirius's shoulder.

"Well, we all know what a bitch my mother is. What did you get?" Sirius asked James. James showed him - he had received a book titled Q_uidditch Through the Ages _from Sirius, a box of chocolate frogs from Remus, and a hand knitted Gryffindor scarf from Peter. The whole house was currently wearing Peter's scarves, he loved knitting but they were all he could make, not that anyone was complaining... it was winter after all.

The day went on, as days tend to do, and the Marauders soon got bored and decided to play the age old traditional game of truth or dare.

"Prongs, truth or dare?" Sirius went first.

"Truth," replied James, knowing all too well what kind of dare that Sirius would dream up. (He still vividly remembered the 'pink frilly knickers incident', but that's another tale).

"How do you really feel about Evans?"

James thought about his answer

"Truthfully? I really don't know."

"Aww, you're no fun," said Sirius, pouting.

"Well then Sirius, truth or dare?" James was going to have his revenge for the 'pink frilly knickers incident'.

"Dare."

"I dare you to find a charm to make someone's clothes invisible, and use it on..."


	2. Chapter 2 part 1

**Disclaimer - This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.**

_A/N – Previously this fic was at , but I have since gotten tired of the whole process of uploading it there._

_I dare you to find a charm to make someone's clothes invisible, and use it on..._

"Snivellus."

James pronounced Sirius's fate with a grin.

"Are you mad!?" spluttered Sirius. "Who would want to see **him** naked!?"

"Well," said James with a snicker, "I don't think Peter would mind that much."

Peter almost choked on a Chocolate Frog he was eating. "Relax, Wormtail, I was just kidding!" James added hastily, looking alarmed. Peter looked relieved; he was worried they would uncover his secret...

"When do I have to do this by?" Sirius asked, interrupting Peter's thoughts. Now that the shock of the dare had worn off, Sirius thought this could be kind of fun.

"Next week," Remus supplied.

Sirius whistled. "You want me to research and master a spell in a week? Well, it'll be difficult, but not impossible."

James grinned. "Right, Remus, truth or dare?" As Sirius went off to find out how to do this spell, Remus got the most terrifying dare of his life...

* * * * *

Nothing very interesting happened in the next few days; Sirius got a detention from Slughorn for putting slugs in his morning pumpkin juice and James tried to talk to Lily, but had a chicken wing thrown at his head. On the Wednesday morning, the four Marauders walked into the Great Hall. Sirius, though he was preoccupied with the dare he was going to complete this morning, noticed Remus's robes looked looser than usual. He decided not to question him about it, though, and sat down at the Gryffindor table. Unfortunately for him, there was already somebody sitting in the seat he chose.

"BLACK!" screamed Katrina, one of Lily's friends.

Sirius stood up hastily. "Sorry," he mumbled. Unbeknownst to the rest of the world, he and Katrina harbored a love/hate relationship. The love bit being they had had crushes on each other since second year, though neither knew the other did, and the hate part - well, they didn't always get on so well...

"WHY MUST YOU RUIN BREAKFAST FOR ME TODAY, BLACK? WHY?" She then stormed out of the Hall. But when she was about halfway to the doors, Sirius had an idea.

"OI! KAT!" he yelled after her, conjuring a milkshake from thin air. As she turned around he piffed the milkshake at her head, scoring a perfect bull's-eye. She glared at him, but decided to get her revenge later, when she didn't smell like artificially flavored banana milk.

Remus was feeling edgy enough already, without Sirius acting like a complete prat. "Sirius..." he said warningly. Sirius looked around, and the grin slid off his face like stinksap. Severus Snape, A.K.A Snivellus, had just walked into the Hall.

"Okay." He mustered up all his courage, and made little circles with his wand as he muttered, "_Vestis defluo", _and piece by piece, Snape's clothing started to disappear. First went his shoes, revealing neon pink socks. Then, off with his shirt, showing a pale chest and gangly arms. The next item of clothing to disappear was his pants, showing his graying, dirty briefs. When he was just standing there in his socks and underwear, some of the students started to laugh. Off came his neon pink socks. Most of the younger students covered their eyes for the grand finale, but the show was only just beginning. As Sirius prepared for the underpants coming off - dreading what he was about to see - James pulled out his wand and muttered something under his breath. Some of the older students looked disappointed. But as Sirius was wondering why his spell hadn't fully worked, loud techno music started playing, seemingly from nowhere.

If Snape had been smart, he would have run right about now, but what happened next rooted him to the spot, because Remus had just stood up and was..._moving_...with the music. Sirius stared in shock as he found out why Remus's robes were so loose this morning. Remus was doing a striptease. He pulled off his robes, and swung them around his head, revealing a toned chest that nobody had really thought he possessed. And was _Remus Lupin_ **seriously** wearing a spiked dog collar?

Before anyone could register this shock, off came his pants, which made most of the girls start fanning themselves. You see, he was wearing leather short shorts. Very TIGHT leather short shorts. And knee-high leather boots. He starting gyrating over to Snape, who still looked as though he'd been hit by a Full Body-Bind. As Remus wiggled over to Snape, he put out one finger in front of him, and motioned for Snape to come closer. Grinning, James flicked his wand, and Snape found himself walking over to Remus as though in a trance.

Remus considered running away and never looking back as he thought about what he had to do next, but that was not the Marauder way. He tensed as he ran his hands over Snape's skinny chest, and slid down, down, down until he was kneeling in front of Snape. He almost gagged as he grabbed the waistband of Snape's graying underpants with his teeth and pulled them off his weedy little body. His dare done, he spat out the underpants, grabbed up his robes and ran spitting out of the great hall. He planned on scrubbing and rinsing his mouth out until next Christmas.

The trance like state Snape was in wore off when he realized people were laughing at him, and he flushed and covered *ahem* himself with one of the plates from the table nearest to him and ran out of the Great Hall. Where were the teachers during all this, you ask? Oh, they had...other things to attend to...

**Flashback**

"PROFESSOR DUMBLEDORE!" a boy was screaming as he ran through the halls towards the teachers' lounge.

"Pettigrew!" a voice said sharply. The voice belonged to Professor McGonagall. "What do you think you are doing running around the corridors at this hour in the morning?" she questioned him, looking forbidding in her tartan dressing gown.

"I, er, that is to say..." Peter stammered.

"Well spit it out, boy, I don't have all day!"

"I am looking for Professor Dumbledore because of something that happened in the staffroom," he said in a rush.

"Well, go to breakfast, Mr. Pettigrew, I will find Albus and let him know."

"No need, Minerva, I'm already here," came a pleasant voice from an empty classroom.

McGonagall didn't bother asking why he was in there. She beckoned him to follow her to the staffroom, and as she turned the corner she ran right into Peter. He was trying to find out if anything was going on between McGonagall and Dumbledore, you see. "Breakfast, now!" McGonagall barked at him, and he scampered off.

"Well, we ought to go see what it is Mr. Pettigrew was so anxious to see me about," said Dumbledore cheerfully.

* * * * * * *

As they walked into the staffroom, the door slammed shut behind them, and a pleasant tingling sensation ran through their bodies. "Albus!" McGonagall gasped. "I have become my Animagus form...and I can't change back!"

"At least you're only a tabby cat," came an annoyed voice from behind her.

She turned around to see a fat crow sitting there. "Horace?" she questioned.

"In the flesh...sort of," the crow answered. McGonagall jumped; she wasn't used to talking in her cat form. _I wonder what Albus is..._she thought.

"Hello, Minerva!" a voice called from above her. She looked up to see a bright red and gold phoenix hovering above her. "What's new, pussycat?" the new Dumbledore asked her. "Oh, I have been wanting to do that for such a long time!" he stated gleefully.

"Albus, get down here at once, we need to work out why we're here, and how to change ourselves back!"

"Oh, I think this is kind of fun, don't you, Minerva?" he said, flying around the roof.

"No, I do not! Come down at once!" Dumbledore sighed, but flew down onto the ground, and stared intently at McGonagall. "Well, first things first, we need to figure out why we are animals, then we need to figure out how to change back."

"Well, the change happened when we walked into the room; maybe we can walk out and it will be reversed?" Slughorn suggested.

"Oh, that is the stupidest idea I have ever heard...but we have nothing better to do, so let's try it," McGonagall said doubtfully. They all walked over to the door, McGonagall stuck her paw under it and pulled it open, and as soon as it was open they all rushed outside.

"Well, that didn't work," McGonagall said dryly. They decided the safest place for them would probably be the staffroom, and sat down, trying to think of another way to reverse the spell.

"This is probably the Marauders' doing. Therefore, we will have to think like them to reverse one of their spells," said Dumbledore, his eyes twinkling.

"So, what do you suggest?" asked McGonagall warily. Dumbledore stood up, and, using a candle from one of the brackets on the wall, set fire to his own tail feathers. Within seconds, he was back to normal, but still smelled of burning feathers. He then set fire to McGonagall's tail, same with Slughorn and the others. "Come on, the Marauders must have trapped us here for some reason."

And they set off towards the Great Hall.

**End flashback**

"POTTER! BLACK!" McGonagall shouted as she burst through the doors of the Great Hall. They looked around in terror.

"Why, Professor McGonagall, where have you been?" Sirius asked nervously. "I think you know very well where I've been, Mr. Black," she said menacingly.

"Now, Professor, why would you think that?" asked James, then, realizing she had no idea what had gone on this morning, added, "We are very sorry we cast that spell on you and your fellow staff members, it was wrong, and we hope you forgive us."

"Detention. Tomorrow night. Six o'clock. My office. Now, out!" she yelled at them. They flounced out of the Great Hall to look for Remus, and plot what they were going to do in detention.


	3. Chapter 2 part 2

**Disclaimer - This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.**

_A/N – Previously this fic was at , but I have since gotten tired of the whole process of uploading it there._

**His dare done, he spat out the underpants, grabbed up his robes and ran spitting out of the great hall. He planned on scrubbing and rinsing his mouth out until next Christmas. **

As he turned down the corridor to the closest boys' bathroom, he stopped. He thought he had seen a girl running into the library, and she appeared to be crying. Concerned for this girl, he walked tentatively through the library doors, wary of Madam Pince. The last time he had seen her, she had been throwing things at Sirius and James, and since he was their friend, he worried she might hold a grudge against him. As he didn't see her, he thought it would be safe to look for the girl - but where should he start...?

_Well_, he thought, _I could always start at the beginning._

So he went up to the book shelves closest to him and started searching behind them.

He had just narrowly avoided taking his eye out on the corner of _History of the Hippocampus,_ which somebody had shoved roughly back onto its shelf, when somebody spoke behind him.

"Who are you looking for, then?" said a girl's voice, quietly.

Remus turned around, and saw a girl with light brown hair, which hung limply around her face, shining grey eyes, and the saddest expression he had seen somebody wear for a long time.

"I'm pretty sure I'm looking for you, actually," he admitted.

"Me?" she said, confused. "Why on earth would you be looking for me, I've never even met you before."

"I saw you running into the library, and wanted to check whether you were alright."

"Well, I'm fine. I don't need people to check up on me," she said, and Remus detected a hint of resentment in her tone.

"Hey, why don't you tell me what's up? Come on, I won't bite." He smiled at her, cringing inside as he silently added, _unless it's 'that time of the month'_.

"Well, okay, but aren't you one of those 'Marauders'?" she asked, frowning. "You aren't just going to run back and tell your friends about how you got 'emotionless Emma' to show you her, well, her emotions to you, are you?"

_Ahh, so this is the famous 'emotionless Emma' I have heard so much about from Lily_, Remus thought. "No, I swear on my life, I will not repeat a word of this current conversation to my friends," he said solemnly. "If you want, I won't even let them know I talked to you."

"Oh, that would be great, thank you," she gushed. Remus sensed that she had been waiting for somebody to open up to for ages.

They sat down at the nearest table and Remus listened patiently to her talking about how everybody thought she had no emotions, because she didn't like to show them in public; and about how nobody wanted to be her friend because she was so strange and unpopular.

After a few minutes, they heard footsteps near the doors, and somebody called, "Moony, are you in here? I know you probably are, you're not anywhere else and you spend far too much time in here." He realized his friends must be looking for him, and quickly asked, "What year are you in?"

"Same as you," came the reply. Remus was surprised; he had never seen this girl around before. "Well, I'd better get going, my friends are trying to find me - I'll meet you back here same time next week, okay?"

"Okay." She smiled, and pointed at his legs. Remus's heart did a strange kind of back flip in his chest; she had a very pretty smile. Then he realized he was still wearing nothing but leather short shorts and a dog collar.

"Well, goodbye then."

"Later." And Remus went off to meet his friends, who immediately started teasing him about what had happened at breakfast.

* * * * * *

"Okay." Sirius cornered Remus after charms one day. "Why have you been so happy lately?"

"Why, whatever do you mean?" asked Remus innocently.

"You know exactly what I mean; ever since you had to do that dare a few days ago, you've been grinning like an idiot and not even attempting to tell us off for..." He paused to think. "Well, whatever we've done in the past few days - I forget. The point is, you're acting like you _enjoyed_ it or something," Sirius finished, sounding disgusted.

Remus paled. If his friends thought he liked Snape... no... he didn't even want to think about it.

"Are you insane? You must have an incredibly sick mind to think that I would have enjoyed having to do... that." He _**really**_ didn't want to think about it.

"Well, tell me why you've been so happy then. I swear, I won't tell anybody." Sirius grinned. Remus didn't quite trust Sirius when he grinned like that, but if the other option was having people think he liked Snape...

"Fine, but you have to stick to your promise, okay?"

"Remus, of _course_ I will stick to my promise," said Sirius innocently.

Remus proceeded to tell Sirius what had happened after he left the Great Hall.

"...and then you lot came along, and she had to go," he finished.

"Are you serious? You have a crush on emotionless Emma?" Sirius was shocked.

"I do _not_ have a crush," said Remus, offended. "Remus Lupin does not get crushes. Remus Lupin may fancy somebody, but he is too mature to have silly crushes."

_Hmm...maybe it's not a crush I have on Katrina then..._ Sirius thought.

"So, you admit that you fancy her then?" Sirius had Remus trapped. "Oh, I can't wait to tell James and Peter!"

"Hey!"

"Oh, fine, I won't tell them."

"That's better," Remus said sulkily.

"But seriously, why _her_? You could do so much better, mate." Sirius was very confused.

"Well, maybe I think she's a really nice person, and quite pretty to boot, has that ever crossed your mind?"

"No," came the reply.

"Well, obviously you wouldn't think of that, you just think of girls as playthings," Remus said nastily.

Sirius was stung. He turned away to walk back to the Gryffindor common room. "Sirius, I'm sorry, I didn't mean it, I just got mad that you were teasing me about fancying Emma."

Sirius kept on walking; he was going to prove to Remus that he didn't just think of girls as 'playthings.' He just had absolutely no idea how. He heard Remus trying to follow him and apologize, and broke into a run - he was faster than Remus, and lost him when he turned into the next corridor. He hid in a secret closet behind a tapestry of Doris the Dainty, and tried not to make a sound as he heard Remus passing him.

"Black!" somebody hissed loudly behind him. He turned around, and as he couldn't see who was there, he just put his hand over where he thought their mouth would be. He listened intently. No sound of Remus. "Mmmpphhh!" Sirius took his hand off the person's mouth, whoever they were. _Okay, let me just see if it's a girl or a guy..._

Sirius started feeling around the shoulder area, but as he was moving around to the chest, the person grabbed his wrists. _Hmm...feminine hands, so it's either a girl, or Snape._

"Don't even think about it, Black, not if you like your testicles on your body." _Okay, so I guess it's a girl, and what girls threaten me other than..._ _oh, right. But still, her voice sounds familiar._

Sirius flushed as the realization hit him. Thankfully, it was way too dark to see it. _I can't believe I'm in a closet with the girl I've liked since my 2__nd__ year..._

"What are you doing barging into the very closet I am hiding in, Black?" Katrina asked.

"Well, why are you hiding in the first place?" Sirius countered smoothly.

"None of your business. Besides, I asked first."

"Oh wow, I haven't heard 'I asked first' since about first year." Sirius was having fun taunting her. He had no idea how to act around a girl he really liked.

"Doesn't matter - the point is, we're both in a closet, and Remus is right outside the door. I know you're hiding from him." _How does she do that..._ _oh, never mind._

"How can you be certain he's out there?"

"Listen."

So he did. And when he listened closely, he could hear breathing trying to be stifled, ever so quietly. _Damn._

"Well, I guess I'm stuck in here, what about you?" Sirius was determined to find out why she was in there.

"Okay, well, I'm actually hiding from your little brother."

"Regulus? Why, what's he done now?"

"Oh, he just keeps hitting on me; I needed a break."

"Fair enough." After this short exchange of friendly(ish) words, silence ensued.

Suddenly, Sirius had the sudden urge to grab Katrina and snog her till neither of them could breathe. _Better quell that urge..._ _oh, shit._

Any male would have had the same reaction to this situation: trapped in a small closet with a hot girl, thinking about snogging, and... well, yes. That didn't make it any less embarrassing, though...

"Black..." Unfortunately for Sirius, they were in close confines in that closet.

"Umm... it's just a quill in my pocket, I swear." He cringed, _'I've got a quill in my pocket'? You couldn't come up with anything better than__** that**__?_

"Pretty big quill." Katrina was smiling, though Sirius couldn't see it. Sirius blushed - was she making fun of him?

_I so want to snog him, but I'm not sure how he'd react..._ _oh, screw it,_ Katrina thought, and pressed her lips against his. She started to pull away as she realized he was just standing there, but then he wrapped his arms around her and started kissing her back with gusto. After this had gone on for about 40 seconds they both needed some air, and broke apart from each other, gasping. "...wow," said Sirius breathlessly.

"Yeah...wow," echoed Katrina.

"You think Remus is still out there? Cause I think we need to find a better place to do this, where I don't have a broom poking me in the arse."

"Oh, who cares if he is, let's get out of here."

They came tumbling out of the broom closet, straight into the arms of Professor Dumbledore. He eyed their tousled hair and robes with interest. "Erm... Professor, it's not what it looks like, I mean, we can explain," said Sirius nervously, looking at Katrina to see what her reaction to this new development was.

"Yeah, we weren't performing illegal jinxes or stealing the brooms, we were just making out," she told Dumbledore. _What a woman..._ Sirius thought admiringly.

Dumbledore winked. "Well, off you go then Miss Collins, I trust you are looking for somewhere more comfortable to, er, _make out_."

We will leave them now. Nothing more happened than snogging and maybe a bit of groping, I assure you.

Meanwhile, in another part of the school:

"James, James," gasped Peter, having run halfway across the school to find his friend. "You'll never _believe_ what I just heard Moony telling Padfoot!"


	4. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer - This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.**

_A/N – Previously this fic was at , but I have since gotten tired of the whole process of uploading it there._

The next day, as Remus, James, Sirius and Peter all walked into the great hall, nearly everybody put on a blank face, completely devoid of any emotion. The Marauders didn't really notice it until Peter tripped over somebody's bag, causing a jar of frogspawn to smash everywhere, and the person that the bag belonged to didn't look up or even seem to care. That's when James and Peter realized they had made a huge mistake.

"Hey, Lupin," Remus heard a 3rd year Ravenclaw hiss at him. He looked around, and the boy made kissy faces at him. Something clicked in Remus's brain, and he turned on Sirius. "What did you do?" he asked menacingly.

"Moony- Remus, I swear it wasn't me, I wouldn't do that." Sirius looked alarmed, though he hadn't done it; he had no idea what Remus may do to him if he thought he had.

"Remusitwasn'thimIswearitwasmeandJames!" blurted out Peter.

This took a moment for Remus to figure out what Peter had said, because he had jumbled the words together, but when he had, he rounded on them instead of poor Sirius.

"Alright then, what did _you _do?" he asked just as menacingly.

"Well, um, you see..." James proceeded to tell Remus all about the previous night...

**Flash back**

"James, James," gasped Peter, having run halfway across the school to find his friend. "You'll never _believe _what I just heard Moony telling Padfoot!"

"Go on then, Peter, spit it out," James was slightly annoyed at him for interrupting a conversation he had been having with Luccieta, one of the most popular girls in the school, and who had promised to set him up with Lily.

"Er..." Peter didn't really want to say something this important in front of her. James noticed his reluctance and thought that asking Peter to tell him a private conversation he'd overheard in front of Luccieta _wasn't _the best idea.

He motioned for Peter to follow him out the portrait hole, with Luccieta looking on curiously.

"What do you want, Wormtail? I was having a very important conversation..." He glanced longingly over his shoulder to the portrait hole, where Luccieta was waiting to help him with his Evans troubles.

"James, Moony fancies Emma!"

"Who?" James was as clueless as ever, and he wasn't really paying attention, he just kept looking back at the portrait hole.

"Emma! You know, emotionless Emma? In Evans' dorm, I think..."

"Wait, so Moony fancies this Emma bird, and she is in the same room as Evans... Wormtail, we have to get these two together!"

"W-Why?" Peter was so confused, why would James want Remus to date one of the least popular girls in school?

"Well, if Moony goes out with Emma, she will start hanging around with us, and so I can talk to her about Evans since she is in her dorm, it's the perfect plan!"

"Er...if you say so," Peter said nervously.

"Well, thanks Pete, I have to go back in and talk to Luccieta. Later!"

He turned around, told the Fat lady the password (green tea leaves), climbed though the portrait hole and ran smack bang into Luccieta, who had obviously been trying to hear what they were saying.

"Ouch - Okay, Luce, turns out I don't need your help after all, I've come up with a foolproof plan."

Luccieta looked surprised.

"Oh, and may I ask what this _foolproof_ plan of yours is?" Luccieta asked curiously.

_Can't be that foolproof, considering it came one of the biggest fools in Gryffindor..._ she thought to herself.

"Okay, don't tell anybody, but Remus fancies Emma."

_Emma? As in '_Emotionless_ Emma'? _Luccieta wondered.

"...And so I have to get them together so Emma can become one of our friends by association and since she is in Evans' dorm, she can try and get her to go out with me." James finished.

_Oh, brilliant plan._ Luccieta thought.

"Oh, brilliant plan," she said to him.

"You think?"

"No, I was being sarcastic, now if you'll excuse me I have to go tell the rest of the school who Remus fancies," she said nastily, and walked off, leaving James standing there wondering what would happen the next morning.

**End flash back**

"Oh, so it really _wasn't _Sirius. Sorry, mate." Sirius looked relieved that Remus was no longer mad at him.

Instead, Remus was now advancing on James.

"Hey, what about Pete? He's as much at fault as I -"

He was then cut off rather rudely on account of Remus's hands closing around his neck.

"Why would you tell something like this to Luccieta? Are you really that much of a fool?" Remus hissed. Of course, James couldn't answer as Remus was cutting off his air supply. Peter darted around nervously, thankful that Remus had forgotten his part in all this.

"Remus!"

Remus turned around, subsequently dragging James with him, as he still refused to let go of his throat.

"Oh. Hi, Emma," he said pleasantly, his hands still wrapped tightly around James's neck. "Nice day, don't you think?"

"Er, sure, whatever," she replied, looking in concern at James who had now turned an ugly shade of purple. "Don't you think you should let him go now?"

Remus looked at James, noticed that he seemed to be going limp, and quickly dropped him. James lay on the floor, gasping for breath.

"Sorry about that. I just found out he was the one who told Luccieta I fancy you, and she told the rest of the school."

"Oh, yes, so it's true then?" she asked nervously, blushing.

"Oi! Lupin! You and Reed going to get it on over there?" a boy yelled, making movements with his pelvis.

_Ah, so her last name is Reed,_ Remus thought to himself.

"Er, I have to go, I might see you around," he said to Emma.

"Oh, alright then." She looked a bit put out.

As Remus left the hall, Sirius said, "You should probably go after him; his social life has never had this kind of blow before."

"Oh, alright then, but where will he go?" she asked.

"Well, there's this little known bar in Hogsmede, called the Groovy Gillyweed, it's owned by a family of wizards and witches who thought that the 60's were the best time in the world."

"How do I get there?" she asked firmly.

"Well, it involves breaking some rules..."

"Continue."

"Okay, at 8 o'clock there is a passageway straight to the bar right behind that portrait of Gladys the Great on the third floor. It only opens from 8:00 to 8:01 though, so you have to be quick, once you're in, and it's closed, there is only one way to go, and that's straight forward. Good luck." Sirius smiled at her, and then went off to berate Peter for telling James, because they all knew James couldn't keep a secret.

* * * * *

So, at a little before 7:00 that night, Emma snuck down from her dormitory, and saw Remus dart through the portrait hole. Of course, she followed him. Though the corridors, avoiding teachers and Mrs. Norris, all the while making sure Remus didn't notice her. When they finally reached the portrait of Gladys the Great on the third floor, it was two minutes until 8:00. Emma watched as Remus stood patiently, waiting for the time when the passage would open. As the clock stuck 8:00, Gladys darted out of her portrait, and they could hear her running through the other portraits. Where she was going, nobody really cared. Remus carefully moved the portrait aside to reveal a hole in the wall just big enough for him. He crept into the hole, careful not to wake any of the other portraits, and it swung back to cover the hole. Emma followed. She followed him through the passage, careful not to make a sound, or else Remus would know she was there. Finally, she saw Remus crawl through a hole and into a brightly lit, music filled room. After she had clambered through the hole as well, she looked around. The room was filled with witches and wizards, all wearing tie dyed robes and all dancing to the 60's music blaring from a loudspeaker by the wall. She looked around anxiously, trying to find Remus, and noticed him sitting moodily at the bar; he had already downed two glasses of firewhisky, and was starting his third.

_I am so sick of being Emotionless Emma, from now on, I'm just...Emma, _she thought to herself as she slowly but surely made her way through the throng of people and towards the bar....


	5. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer - This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.**

_A/N – Previously this fic was at , but I have since gotten tired of the whole process of uploading it there._

"Hey," Emma said softly to Remus, just as he started his fifth glass of Firewhisky.

"Oh, hey!" Remus smiled at her.

"Don't you think this is a bit drastic? You know, going out and getting drunk just because your social life died before your eyes..." She trailed off, looking uncertain, unnerved that Remus was still just smiling at her.

"Not at all, fair maiden. Now let us take to the balcony so the moon can shine upon your beautiful visage!" Remus was clearly drunk, though she had to admire his ability to string long sentences like that together without slurring his words. Emma blushed.

"Er...Whatever you say." She laughed. Drunk-Remus was very cute. He grabbed her hand and pulled her through the throng to get to a staircase she hadn't noticed earlier. It led to a sort of lounge, with happy couples either wrapped around each other on the couches or dancing to quiet music coming from a Muggle jukebox. Remus led her to a balcony. She gasped. The view was wonderful; it overlooked the entire village of Hogsmeade, covered in snow. It was like something from a fairytale.

"Whee! Look at me! I'm king of the world!"

"Remus! Get down before you hurt yourself!" He was balancing on the balcony ridge, his arms outstretched.

"I'm fine, Emma! I won't fall! I'm king of the world, remember?"

"Oh, yes, and your sense of balance is perfect when you're absolutely wasted!"

"Wha-Whoa!" Remus wobbled dangerously on his perilous perch before righting himself.

"Remus, seriously, get down, you're going to fall!"

"No, I'm no-Ah!" He fell.

"Remus!" Emma screamed, and ran back down the steps, found the front door and pelted over to the place where Remus had fallen. As she neared the spot, she saw him stand up from a snowdrift, brush himself off and smile at her.

"Ah, fair maiden, thou shant worry thyself about me, for I am strong, and my love for thee will carry me through all misfortunes." Obviously, Remus reverted to really old English when he was plastered.

_Wait; did he say 'love'? I know people will say things they don't even know themselves when they are drunk, but I only just met the guy!_ Emma thought worriedly.

"Ouch!" Remus exclaimed when he tried to walk. Emma took a closer look and discovered he had sprained his ankle.

She sighed.

"Come on, let's get you to the hospital wing - I don't know how I'm going to explain you being wasted and on a balcony in an out-of-bounds area after curfew, though."

She checked her watch; sure enough, nine o'clock, curfew for fifth-years, had come and passed while they'd been in Hogsmeade.

She slung his arm round her shoulders and supported him through the passageway back to Hogwarts, and through the hallways to the hospital wing on the fifth floor. Luckily, the nurse, Madam Thabier, never asked too many questions, for which Emma was highly grateful. When she saw Remus, her face softened, and she said, in a kindly sort of way, "Oh, you poor lad, so much misfortune happens to you, doesn't it?"

Remus happily replied, "I'm a duck!"

Madam Thabier got him into a bed and fixed up his ankle in a flash (literally - she waved her wand and it flashed orange), then told Emma she should go get some sleep, and that she would be keeping Remus there till morning, just to let him sleep it off. Here, Emma thought she detected a wink, but it may have been a trick of the light. Madam Thabier smiled then turned back into her office, putting out the candle as she went. Emma looked at Remus peacefully sleeping in his hospital bed and smiled. Before she left, she gave him a kiss on the cheek and said, "Goodnight...Noble king."

* * * * *

When Emma went to check up on him the next morning she found him sitting up with a pained expression on his face.

"Remus?" she said tentatively.

"Gah, loud...noise...bad," was his reply.

"Oh, sorry," Emma whispered. "Er, how are you?"

"Oh, you know, splitting headache, pain in my gut, the usual symptoms of somebody who went out last night and got himself absolutely wasted."

She smiled. Remus was fine, even if he did have a nasty hangover.

"So, did I do anything embarrassing last night? Madam Thabier informs me that you brought me in and I was completely wasted with a sprained ankle - how did that happen?" Remus seemed a bit cheerier now that he was used to the sound of talking.

"Oh, well, you didn't do much apart from talk like Shakespeare and fall off a balcony." She deliberately left out the part where he had proclaimed his love for her.

"Oh, I was talking like Shakespeare again?" Remus groaned. "Why do I always do that when I'm drunk?"

"Oh, well, I thought it was very cute," Emma told him.

_Hey, look at me, I'm actually flirting! Well, sort of..._

Remus looked taken aback. Emma was worried she'd gone too far before he said, "You know, nobody has ever said that before." Emma let out a great sigh of relief.

"Well, I can't think why not, it's really romantic... well, some of it, you know, the talking in old English bit..." She had started babbling. Remus zoned out for a minute, just thinking about how Emma had said he was 'cute'. When he came back down to earth, he realized she was still babbling.

_Just go for it, live in the moment a bit more, Remus. Besides, she's giving me a headache..._

Remus was surprised to hear his brain tell him what to do, and then decided it - **he** - had a good point.

Emma was cut off from her nervous rambling by Remus's lips pressing against hers. Her eyes opened wide for a moment in shock, then she just got lost in the moment.

After what seemed like a decade, though it was actually only about seven seconds, they broke apart. Emma still had her eyes closed and had a slight smile on her face. When she opened her eyes, she saw Remus sitting in his hospital bed looking amazed at what he had done. Emma smiled at him, and then asked, "What are we going to do now?" She wasn't sure whether Remus would want people to know he was dating her. After all, to the rest of the school she was still Emotionless Emma.

"Well," he replied, "there's no point in hiding it, is there?" She beamed at him. "So," Remus asked, "will you be my girlfriend?" Emma smiled and gave her answer in another kiss, then walked out of the hospital wing, swaying back and forth slightly, to get ready for classes.

* * * * *

At lunch, Remus was surprised by James coming up to him and asking, "You know that 'Emotionless Emma' bird? Well, Luccieta tells me she fancies you, and I know you fancy her, so why don't you ask her out?" James grinned to himself; his plan was going perfectly. Remus matched his friend's expression, and then decided he'd humor him, and walked over to Emma. She looked at him curiously because he had James trailing behind him, then Remus winked at her and mouthed, 'Just play along,' to her.

"Oh, Emma, Emma, maiden so fair, would thou do me the honor of becoming my date?" he questioned loudly, smiling as he remembered her saying it was cute when he did this.

"Oh, noble Remus, I am not sure. Will thou love and respect me and honor my wishes?" Emma was also grinning slightly, but James looked vaguely scared; he hadn't expected anything like this to happen.

"I shall, my lady. Now let us seal our love now and forevermore!" He then gave her a long kiss, taking her up in his arms as he did so, and she wrapping her arms around him in turn. James stood there for a bit, and then decided they were quite occupied, and looked around to see most of the school staring at them, their mouths open.

_Another brilliant plan succeeds thanks to me!_ James thought self-confidently. He then went off to find Sirius and Peter to tell them what had just happened; they were in the dungeons, painting the steps that led to the Slytherin common room with bright pink ink that would dry as soon as it touched something slightly warm - such as a human body - and putting oil at the top.

* * * * *

That night, to celebrate the fact that Remus had got himself a girlfriend (he hadn't had one in all his time at Hogwarts, which was a serious thing for the Marauders, unless you were Peter, of course), the Marauders threw a huge party in the Gryffindor common room. As James was the best at Transfiguration, he turned one of the study tables into a pool table, and Sirius went out and got some Butterbeer and Firewhisky, as well as some of those Muggle lamps Remus was so fond of (they assumed that this particular penchant must have come from his mother, who was Muggle-born), which Remus would alter so that they would operate on magic.

Soon everything was ready for the big 'celebration'. Most of the other Gryffindors were just there for the free drinks. After about half an hour, Sirius noted that people were just standing around awkwardly, and decided to get this thing rolling. He waved his wand and music began, apparently coming from nowhere. People looked surprised at first, but then they started to liven up. James went around handing out glasses of Firewhisky and Butterbeer and Remus grabbed Emma by the hand and started dancing with her, which was a surprise because Remus **never **danced. Other people took his lead and started dancing as well, and soon everybody was having a good time, which was what the Marauders had hoped for. Soon James had moseyed on over to Lily, who was standing there with her almost full glass of Firewhisky, bopping her head to the music. "So, Evans, would you like to dance?" asked James in what he clearly thought was a seductive manner. Her only reply was to splash her Firewhisky in his face, which resulted in a very entertaining show of him running around the common room screaming, "Ah! My eyes! It burns!" before tripping over the back of a couch and landing on Peter, who looked slightly sick. He wasn't very good with liquor, which showed later on in the night when he started dancing on the pool table wearing a lampshade on his head.

"I knew those lamps were a good idea!" said Sirius, laughing.

"How much Firewhisky has he _had_?" questioned James, a definite note of amusement in his voice. He had recovered from Lily's rejection and was now hitting on random girls. (Granted, he **had** had about three glasses of Firewhisky, himself.)

"Hmm, I don't know," said Remus thoughtfully, holding up Peter's almost full glass. "Would you say that's one eighteenth of a glass, or one fifteenth of a glass?"

Sirius laughed. "Well, we all know it would only take a seven-year-old to drink him under the table," he said fondly. Even if they did treat him like a lackey sometimes, Peter Pettigrew had sort-of grown on them.

Peter then proceeded to attempt to crowd surf - unfortunately for him, nobody caught him. Remus looked at Peter, who had fallen on the floor and was now snoring. "Oh, just leave him there," Sirius said carelessly.

* * * * *

In the morning, the three boys came down to see Peter still sleeping and covered in party debris.

Sirius poked him with his foot.

"I'm drowning in footwear!" Peter yelled frantically as he woke up. He looked confused as to why Sirius and James were laughing at him, then, realizing what he had just said, joined in with their laughter.

"Come on, you fools, we're going to be late for breakfast," Remus said impatiently, but even he had a slight grin on his face.

They set off through the portrait hole, Peter questioning them about what he had done last night. ("Pete, you only had one fifteenth of a glass of Firewhisky, it wasn't that bad!" James was saying while winking at Sirius.)

When they reached the Great Hall, Katrina looked at Sirius pointedly, and he sat down next to her. Of course, the others followed, not taking any notice of their surroundings.

"Hey, James, how's it going with trying to get Evans to notice you?" Sirius asked loosely. He knew exactly how it was going, but he wanted to make James look at Lily, which he promptly did. "Oh, you know, she still won't talk to me..." he trailed off, enthralled by how red her hair was.

"Well, we won't have to listen to him for the rest of breakfast," Sirius said while brushing his hands off in the manner of somebody who had just accomplished a very hard job. He then felt somebody's foot brush against him. He looked at Katrina questioningly; she returned his look with a shy yet playful one, and he smiled. Meanwhile, James continued talking to himself.

"Look at her hair, it's like the very fires of the earth, and her eyes, green as the trees in the Forbidden Forest...and the way she walks, like a goddess brought down to earth..."

"So, Peter, any romance going on with you?" Remus was asking Peter.

"Oh, well, there's this girl in the year below us, she's a Hufflepuff and I think she might be interested..."

"Hey, Sirius." James pulled out of his temporary ignorance of everything but Lily. Sirius pulled his foot away from Katrina's quickly, bumping the table as he did so, thinking that James had noticed something.

"Do you wanna see if we can shrink Snape's nose later?" Sirius breathed a sigh of relief; his secret was still safe. Though he didn't even know why he was keeping it a secret anyway...

"Sure, Prongs, we'll get him right after charms," Sirius replied. And that's how their day started, just a normal breakfast for the Marauders. But things in that day would not be normal for them, as they were soon to discover...


	6. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer - This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.**

_A/N – Previously this fic was at , but I have since gotten tired of the whole process of uploading it there._

Oh sure, the day started off simply enough. James and Sirius tried reducing the size of Snape's proboscis as they had planned, but unfortunately were caught by Professor Slughorn, who was passing; he gave them a detention and undid the spell before it actually accomplished anything. Remus was caught passing notes to Emma in Charms, and was also put in detention. Peter, who hadn't done anything wrong, requested to have a detention too, just so he wouldn't be left out. McGonagall took pity on him and said that he could join his friends.

No, the part of the day that was unusual came around lunchtime.

The Marauders had just started lunch when Katrina tapped Sirius on the shoulder and winked furtively. This was of course, not noticed by James, who was staring at Lily while the lettuce slowly dropped out of his sandwich and onto the floor, where a grateful mouse was picking it up and taking it back to its little mouse home.

It also went unnoticed by Remus - he was very much occupied with Emma, who was sitting across his lap, locked in a fierce make-out session with him, which is why she didn't notice Katrina and Sirius walk out of the Great Hall either. Not together of course, because that would just be too obvious.

Nor were they noticed by Peter, who seemed to be having trouble with his gourmet salad. Every time he raised his fork to his mouth, the salad would shoot randomly across the hall, hitting somebody in the eye or nose. The culprit was sitting at the next table; a forth-year Hufflepuff girl, the very one that Peter had said seemed interested in him at breakfast that morning. She had an unkind expression on her face, and every time Peter didn't connect with his salad, a vindictive look of evil pleasure flitted across it. Peter dealt with his flying salad problem in the smartest way he thought possible; he shoved his face down into the bowl and started eating it like that. Well, it _was_ a very delicious salad. His strange eating habits attracted the attention of the people sitting nearest him, but he didn't really seem to notice, with his head shoved in his bowl such as it was.

Emma and Remus finally parted, Remus looking breathless, Emma looking satisfied. She looked around at the people who had been staring at them and gave them a challenging look. They hastened to fix their eyes instead on the food in front of them or to talk to their friends.

She then noticed that Sirius was missing, as well as that girl in her dorm - what was her name... Katherine-something?

She only noticed that they were both missing because it was the middle of lunch and nobody had even halfway finished eating yet, let alone been ready to leave. She found this slightly suspicious.

"Hey, Remus, where do you think Sirius has gone?" she mumbled in his ear, too content to take her head off his shoulder, where it was now resting.

"Hmm... I'm not sure...it's not like Sirius to leave lunch early..." he said, puzzled. Remus turned and looked around the Great Hall to see if his friend was chatting up one of the girls at another house table. This was much to Emma's annoyance, as it meant she had to remove her head from its resting place. She also decided to sit on the bench; she was getting annoyed with the piercingly stern looks McGonagall was shooting her every five minutes.

After satisfying himself that Sirius was nowhere to be found in the Great Hall, Remus chucked a pepper mill at James, who was jerked rudely out of one of his many fantasies involving Lily.

"What do you want?" he asked grumpily.

"Sirius is missing," informed Remus.

"Missing? What do you mean, missing?" James was showing a bit more interest now, and Peter had pulled his head out of his bowl to listen as well.

"As in, he's not here in the Great Hall, with all of us," Remus said exasperatedly.

"But Sirius never leaves the hall without us!" exclaimed James in dismay.

"Let's go see if he's in the common room; he might have thought of some homework he really had to do," Peter chimed in.  
Remus, James and Emma all thought this very unlikely, but the common room was as good a starting place as any to begin looking for the missing delinquent.

As they were walking along the fourth floor corridor, they heard some heavy breathing coming from one of the broom closets there, along with some banging and the sounds of falling objects. James grinned.

"It sounds like someone's having a good time in there. Shall we interrupt and spoil their fun?" he questioned. Emma frowned, knowing she wouldn't like that to happen if it had been her in the closet, but she didn't say anything. Remus thought it was a bad idea - who knew what form of decency, if any, the two people in there were in?  
Peter stood there quietly singing to himself, something about a "Mr. Sandman, bring me a dream, make him the cutest, that I've ever seen..."

James looked around at them all, waiting for an objection, and looking slightly disturbed at the lyrics to the song Peter was singing, but as nobody protested, he pulled open the closet door. Two people tumbled out, falling at the others' feet. Everybody looked down to see who the people were...

**Flashback**

The Marauders had just started lunch when Katrina tapped Sirius on the shoulder and winked furtively.

He followed her seductively swaying hips out of the hall, as though hypnotised. A forth-year Hufflepuff noticed this, and a shadow crossed her face. Sirius could tell she was going to take her annoyance out on somebody, but right now he didn't give a crap; his eyes were fixed back on Katrina's arse.

She turned a corner, and walked up a flight of stairs. In Sirius's opinion, this made her arse look even better. He imagined her clad in tight leather clothes, but that reminded him of the dare Remus had done, which was a big turn off; all he could see in his mind's eye now was a naked Snape.

He shuddered.

They kept going like this until they reached the second floor corridor which, conveniently enough, was empty. Katrina turned to face Sirius, who wasn't quick enough to disguise where his eyes had been. She smirked to herself.

"Well, Sirius, where shall we go? I happen to know that at lunchtime Filch never uses the closets on the second floor or the fourth floor - which one shall it be?"

Sirius, though overwhelmed by the urge to tell her to keep walking, just so he could stare at her some more, was also battling with the idea that walking all the way up there would be a waste of valuable snogging time. His mind continued to argue with itself, while Katrina waited for an answer, tapping her foot on the ground impatiently.  
Sirius noticed this, and decided it was best not to keep a girl like her waiting.

"Okay then, I'd rather..."

**End Flashback**

As they looked down upon the couple who had fallen out of the closet, they stood up.

"Alice, you and _**Frank**_?" Emma exclaimed in disbelief. "I never would have believed it of you!"

Frank stood back, shuffling his feet, but looking not all that put out. Maybe this would mean he could snog Alice in public now..."

"Yeah, so what? So what if I'm dating the guy who explodes things in Herbology, who turns cauldrons into nightingales, who makes a Shrinking Solution in Charms. He's really sweet, and funny, and..." Here she lowered her voice to a whisper, and leant in closer to Emma. "And I think I may be in love with him." She blushed. Emma looked astonished, then delighted. "You know, I wasn't referring to _who_ he is. I was talking about _where_ you are."

"Oh." Alice blushed deeper. "Well, we were only in there because we didn't want people to talk..."

"Hey, after Remus and me, you two are hardly going to be a blip on their radars."

"Really?" Alice beamed. "Well, in that case," she said, turning to Frank, "do you mind if we go public?" she asked shyly.

He shook his head vigorously. The use of words seemed to have escaped him for the moment, or perhaps he just wanted to reserve his tongue for things that were more important.

Alice beamed even brighter and hugged Emma, and then she and Frank went off to see if they could still get a sandwich before lunch was over.

"Hey..." James had apparently had a bright idea. "Let's see how many other couples we can get to 'come out of the closet'!" he suggested, sniggering at his own pun.

And so, having nothing better to do, they went round checking in closets. They found quite a few people, too, including Bellatrix and Lestrange, in the year above them. Sirius laughed at his cousin's choice and the fact that she was in a closet with him. **(impossible. Sirius is in a closet. Fix?)** When they found Lockhart and two bimbos in the year below him, he just grinned and walked off with them, not perturbed at all by the fact he had been found in a closet. They also came across two guys in seventh year; James joked that they really were 'coming out of the closet.'

Eventually they started getting bored of this, and debated continuing their search for Sirius, who was still missing in action. They had forgotten they were supposed to be in Care of Magical Creatures right now - well, Remus hadn't, but it was such an unimportant subject that he didn't mind as much as if it were say, Transfiguration.

Peter begged them to do just one more closet, so they walked around for a bit, trying to find one that still had noises issuing from it. Eventually they found a very loud one; James grinned and pulled open the door, then stood there speechless as he saw Sirius with a girl in their year - Carol or something like that. Sirius and his girl continued for a few more seconds before realizing that their private session had suddenly become not so private. As they parted with a noise that sounded like a plunger, Sirius saw James storming off round the corner, and Remus and Emma staring on in incredulity.


	7. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer - This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.**

_A/N – Previously this fic was at , but I have since gotten tired of the whole process of uploading it there._

"Come on, James, please talk to me?" Sirius begged his best friend.

James kept up the same stony silence he'd been maintaining since two days previously, when he and his friends had discovered Sirius and Katrina in a closet together. James wasn't mad at who Sirius had picked - by no means was she the worst girl in Hogwarts - he was just really pissed off at the fact that he hadn't told him. They were _supposed_ to be best friends, after all.

"Look, Prongs-"

"Don't call me that; only my real friends get to call me that, and real friends wouldn't keep something this big from each other." He then stormed over to sit with Frank Longbottom, who looked very surprised, though not ungrateful, that one of the popular boys was coming to sit with him, even if James _was_ a year below him. He immediately started talking to James about how he'd got an O in his last Herbology test. James, who usually wouldn't care less about stuff like this, turned around and appeared interested in the conversation. Sirius looked on in disbelief. He couldn't believe James was still mad at him; usually they forgave each other within two hours of a fight, but two days had gone by and James still refused to even look at him.

Emma and Remus wouldn't talk to Katrina; they blamed her for the whole thing, James wouldn't talk to any of them _except_ Katrina; he didn't blame her - in his opinion it was all Sirius's fault for not telling him - so she had consequently become the one he was spending a lot of his time with. She kept trying to appeal to him about Sirius, but he just wouldn't listen, and became moody and sullen whenever she tried.

At lunch that day when James walked into the Great Hall, Sirius looked up hopefully, but James went and sat with Lockhart, as Katrina was with his other 'friends'. Sirius didn't know what he was holding against Emma, Remus and Peter, but he thought it might simply be the fact that they had been there on that fateful day. Lockhart started asking James whether he thought his hair looked alright today, then pulled out a mirror and started examining himself, which saved James the trouble of having to answer. Lockhart acted very feminine sometimes.

Just then a third-year Ravenclaw boy came up and gave James a scroll. "I've been told to give you this," he informed James, and then walked off to hand similar scrolls to Remus, Sirius and Peter. James opened the scroll to find that his detention for trying to jinx Snape's hair clean was that night; he was supposed to go to McGonagall's office at seven o'clock.

As Sirius read his scroll, he decided that detention would be an excellent chance to try to reason with James.

Just then, Peter decided that he would attempt to steal Sirius's corned beef sandwich. Sirius, being a very suspicious person, had already placed a jinx on it so nobody would take it; he looked up to see Peter being force fed a plate of pasta salad by some invisible hand. Peter was highly allergic to pasta salad. Sirius hastily removed the jinx, and looked sheepishly at Peter, who had already begun breaking out in red blotches.

* * * * *

"Okay, boys, I want you to empty your pockets of anything that could be used to pull a prank whilst in detention - it will be returned upon the end of your detentions." McGonagall had learned that trick from her last detention with the Marauders, but she couldn't very well keep their property afterwards.

They all began emptying their pockets. When James had finished he left Remus and Peter to wait for Sirius, who was still pulling things out of all his hidden pockets. After about five minutes he looked at them sheepishly.

"Uh...I'll meet you guys in there, okay?"

They nodded, and went to join James.

After about ten more minutes of waiting, Sirius finally came in and sat down next to Peter, as James had purposefully taken the end seat and made Remus sit next to him so Sirius couldn't.

"Okay, for this detention you will simply be writing lines, because I have a...meeting...with Albus and won't be here to supervise anything more dangerous than that - Horace actually wanted me to make you scrub the roof of the Astronomy Tower without safety lines; honestly, boys, why did you put those leeches in his soup?" McGonagall finished, shaking her head, then went off to her 'meeting' with Dumbledore, locking and barring the door behind her.

"What lines are we meant to be writing?" asked Sirius, pointing at the board. In her haste to make sure they didn't cause trouble, McGonagall had forgotten to tell them what they were meant to be writing.

_Well, I may as well make use of the spare time I now have_... thought Sirius, looking hopefully at James, who was staring determinedly out the window.

He pulled out a piece of parchment and a quill from his bag and started writing a note to James.

**James, I know I should have told you about Katrina, but I thought you'd take the micky out of me if you knew I actually fancied a girl, rather than just being interested in getting in her pants. I know what you're thinking.** **'Why should I tease you, I fancy Evans, remember?' But well, I've fancied Kat since 2****nd**** year, and well, that's just not normal for me, I'm a lady-killer, right? But please, please forgive me, you're my best friend, and like a brother to me. I miss you, Prongs. **

Sirius looked over this note, and decided to himself that if he could make James laugh, they would be friends again.

He folded the note into a neat little airplane, and flew it over to James, anxious to see if it worked.

The note landed in front of James, startling him; he had been thinking of ways he could murder Sirius. He glanced at Sirius, strongly considering just screwing the plane up and setting it on fire, but rule 143, section 2, paragraph 6 of the Marauders' code of conduct clearly said that all notes passed must be read, so he unfolded it grudgingly.

Sirius saw his eyes getting narrower and narrower as he read, but then he looked up and smiled at Sirius, who took that as a promising sign, and grinned back. The school's two chief pranksters were back.

* * * * *

The next day at breakfast the doors were slammed open. Everybody looked up to see what all the noise was about, and their gazes fell upon the four Marauders, reunited once more, walking to the table as though they owned the place. James and Sirius were at the front, grinning evilly - they would have to make up for the pranking time lost during this little fight - and Remus and Peter were a little way behind them, on either side. Remus smiled when he saw Emma; she looked pleased that all this was over. As soon as they got to the Gryffindor table people moved out of their spots. (They hadn't sat there since the fight started.) Sirius looked around imperiously at the other Gryffindors, as though he were a king looking down upon his subjects.

"So, Sirius, now that we've all discovered your secret, are you going to ask her out?" James asked his friend, who choked on his kippers in surprise that James would ask such a thing.

"Well..." he started, still recovering from the kippers' brutal attack on his airway. " Yeah, I might do that...actually having a steady girlfriend for once might do me some good..." Sirius stopped. He could _not_ believe he had just said that. "I'll ask her after Charms...or during..." he mused.

And that's what he did. During Charms he chucked a piece of paper at her head; she looked around angrily to see who had thrown it, and he threw another one. This one she caught, and read.

**Hey Kat, I know this isn't as fancy as what Remus did, but will you go out with me? 'Siriusly?' haha...**

She scribbled a return note on a fragment of her parchment.

_Alright then, but do I have to 'do' anything? Haha, lol_ _I'm just kidding. Sure, I'll go out with you._

She was careful to aim this right between his eyes. When he read it his eyes lit up and he grinned at her, whilst thinking about all the things they'd get up to together.


	8. Chapter 7

**Disclaimer - This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.**

_A/N – Previously this fic was at , but I have since gotten tired of the whole process of uploading it there._

Over the next few days, Sirius and Katrina attracted many a stare from the students in the lower years, as did Remus and Emma. James didn't really notice, because he could hardly see. Just after Sirius had asked Katrina out, James had decided to try and ask Lily out. Unfortunately, his efforts had been somewhat inadequate.

"Hey, Evans," he had said. "My future must lie in carpentry because I'd sure like to nail you."

This had resulted in her slapping him so hard that his glasses had flown off his face and smashed. He would have just repaired them, but they couldn't find the frames. Turned out Lily had nicked them, just to make sure he would have to wait for his mother to send in another pair. He had already broken his spare pair, trying to turn into Prongs without taking them off.

As they sat down for breakfast on the fifth day of James's temporary blindness, the post owls came in. Sirius looked up in hopes of seeing James's owl, bringing him new glasses from his mother.

"Hey, James, looks like you're in luck, mate," he said, grinning. James's barn owl, Starfish (don't ask) was in amongst the other owls, and flying toward them at a rapid rate, carrying a package large enough to contain at least twenty-seven pairs of glasses. Which, as it turned out, it did.

"Huh," said James sheepishly, putting on a new pair. "Guess she wanted to make sure I don't have to write home for a while." He then got up and took the other pairs of glasses to his dormitory, where he hid them in the secret compartment in his set of drawers; he had lived with the other Marauders for four and a half years, after all.

Just after James left the Hall, Dumbledore stood up to make an announcement.

"Well, students, as you know, Valentine's Day is coming up. The school will be selling flowers and chocolates as usual to help raise money for new goal hoops on the Quidditch pitch; our current ones are in awful condition." The crowd gave a cheer in agreement. "So buy a box of chocolates or a bouquet of roses for your significant other - I'm sure they'll appreciate it, and it is for an excellent cause." Here he sat back down and started up a conversation with Professor Sprout about whether McGonagall would rather have chocolate or roses - not that the students were close enough to hear.

Katrina huffed. "I don't buy into all this commercial junk, it's a hallmark holiday designed to make money." She frowned.

Emma personally shared her opinion, but still wouldn't mind if Remus got her something, for she had never had a Valentine's gift before.

Soon after that, they finished breakfast and proceeded up to their dormitory to get their books for Transfiguration, and found Regulus Black lying concussed on the floor, a very agitated looking girl walking away from the scene.

"Looks like my little bro's been up to his old tricks again," noted Sirius, grinning. They stepped over him and continued up to the tower.

They found James there, trying to fit all his pairs of glasses into the secret compartment. He attempted to hide what he had been doing; he didn't want the others to know about his secret compartment, after all.

"James, it's okay, we all know about your so-called 'secret compartment'," Remus said with a sigh. James looked surprised.

"Er...secret compartment, what secret compartment?" he attempted, then gave up. He put the rest of the glasses under his bed and gathered his things for Transfiguration.

They met the girls downstairs, and began the familiar trek to McGonagall's classroom.

When they were about halfway there the bell rang.

"Shit!" Katrina swore loudly. Her bag had just split right down the middle, causing all her books to tumble out on to the floor.

"No, you guys go on; Professor McGonagall will kill you if you're late for another one of her classes."

The others shrugged and walked off, leaving her to repair the bag and try to stuff all her books and things back in.

"Geez, guys, don't offer to help me or anything..." she muttered to herself as she attempted to fit everything back in her newly mended bag. As she stood up, brushing some dust off her pants, somebody pushed her roughly into the wall, pinning her arms behind her.

"So..." Katrina recognized the voice of Jessica, a girl in her year, but in Ravenclaw. "I hear you and Sirius Black are going out?"

Katrina struggled to make herself heard; it was no easy task, with her face smooshed against a stone wall. "Don't you people have anything better to do than worry about who is dating whom?" she asked.

"So you admit it, you and Sirius are going out?" Jessica persisted.

"If you must know, then yes, we are, though it's really no big secret," Katrina said tiredly. "Now will you please release me so I can go to Defence Against the Dark Arts?"

Jessica pushed Katrina into the wall even harder. "I just have one thing to say - you stay away from Sirius, bitch. He's mine." She released Katrina and walked off. Katrina picked up her bag and headed to McGonagall's class.

"Sorry I'm late, miss, my bag split in the hallway! Everything fell out and all my ink smashed..."

"Sit down, Miss Collins," McGonagall said sharply. "And don't let it happen again." Katrina took a seat next to Sirius and told him all about what had just happened in the hallway.

"Oh, yeah, that Jessica bird's been after me for ages. My last girlfriend kept getting these threatening notes and then her cat went missing - we found him on a rock in the middle of the lake...eventually my girlfriend left me because Jessica tried to throw her off the Astronomy Tower one night when we were up there...that chick's totally psycho," he finished as McGonagall came over to check on how their vanishing spells were going.

"Hmm...Very good, Miss Collins," she praised, awarding the points. "Not so good for you, Mr. Black. Let's try and keep our minds focused on the task at hand, hmm?" She walked off, leaving Sirius looking at what used to be just a garden-variety mouse. He hadn't so much vanished it as turned it green with yellow polka dots.

"Miss Reed, why have you not even made an attempt to vanish your mouse?" McGonagall asked sharply as she saw Emma sitting there with her hands in her lap.

"Well, miss, I have a strong objection to animal cruelty. Why would I vanish a poor defenceless mouse? Do you have something against small, furry animals? You make us turn rabbits into slippers, mice into goblets and who knows what else, and now you're telling us to just make them _vanish?_ Where do they go, I ask you? What have they done to deserve such treatment?" Since Emma had stopped being so emotionless, she had become a bit of a rebel.

"Miss Reed, if you do not vanish this mouse you will be put into detention. The mice go into a slip in time, where they wait patiently for me to bring them back," McGonagall snapped.

Emma seemed satisfied with this answer and pulled out her wand like everybody else. McGonagall continued walking around the room, correcting people who were doing the spell wrong.

"Wait, so you're telling me that dating you could get me killed?" Katrina whispered furiously.

"Erm...Yes?" Sirius answered, now very nervous.

"That's it...I'm getting a magical restraining order," Katrina said decisively.

Sirius eventually managed to vanish his mouse and, getting bored with the current lack of conversation, decided to take a nap, from which he was quite rudely awakened by Professor McGonagall shouting at him.

* * * * *

That night Katrina went to appeal to Dumbledore about getting a magical restraining order.

She presented her case well, and just to get her to stop bugging him, he gave her a piece of paper that verified that Jessica could not go within ten feet of Katrina or any of Katrina's possessions at any time. Being a magical restraining order, it truly enforced this rule.

She had fun in that next week walking up to Jessica and smiling as Jessica was forced to move away from her. After getting nasty warning looks from Dumbledore, she stopped abusing the restraining order, lest it be taken away from her, and the Marauders were once again without anything to do.

Then James stood up and suggested a game that they had never tried before. He took them all to the guys' room before explaining it.

After everybody was comfortably seated on either the floor or someone's bed, he explained the game.

"Okay, my doctor told me this last time I got dizzy and hit my head on the radiator at Remus's place: if you sit down in a very relaxed position, take ten or fifteen deep breaths then stand up, hold your nose and blow out, you'll faint. Want to try it?" he asked excitedly. Remus immediately refused, knowing that doing something like that couldn't be good for you, so Sirius and James tried coaxing the others into it by demonstrating.

Katrina pointed out that doing this would most likely have some negative effect on your brain, but after seeing them do it a few times, and seeing that it actually worked (they passed out for a few seconds), she then joined in.

"Guys, stop, what if you hit your head on one of the beds?" Peter asked nervously.

"Well, they're soft, aren't they; they won't hurt," Sirius said, grinning.

Emma pulled out a Sickle.

"Uh...what are you going to do with that?" asked Remus in confusion.

"I'll show you; watch." She balanced the coin on her thumb. "Okay, should I join in with their fainting or not? Heads for yes, tails for no." She then flipped the coin, caught it and turned it upside down on her arm. "Heads!" she announced, and joined in the fun. At least, it was fun until James fell on top of Peter, who squealed and ran from the room. As they didn't want to get into trouble with McGonagall, Remus suggested they go down and start doing their homework, so that they wouldn't look suspicious. Sirius pointed out that nothing would be more suspicious than him actually **doing** his homework. Remus ignored him.

Just then, a brilliant idea struck Sirius. He rubbed his head. He went along with Remus's idea of doing his homework, because now he had a way to make it fun.

He paid attention to what he was doing for once; he wanted his work to be excellent, at least worthy of an E.

* * * * *

The next day as Professor Slughorn was collecting their Potions essays on brewing a befuddlement draught, he looked extremely surprised when Sirius had his work actually in on time.

The class had to brew a sneezing solution today, and Sirius tried hard to get it right; he wanted to steal some and put it in Snape's evening pumpkin juice.

It wasn't until the class had left that Slughorn looked down to see that Sirius had, in fact, handed in his Herbology essay instead.

"BLACK!" he yelled.

Sirius heard him, and ran to his next class, which, coincidentally, happened to be Herbology.

"Mr. Black, do you have the essay on the honking daffodils I assigned yesterday?" Professor Greenleaf sighed; she knew she was wasting her time. Which is why she was so surprised when he handed her a three foot long piece of parchment. The only problem was that it was Sirius's essay on a befuddlement draught and not an essay on honking daffodils.

She sighed again. No point in punishing Black, it never worked anyway. She decided to go see Professor Slughorn after class to see if he had the essay on honking daffodils Black was supposed to have handed in that lesson.

And so Sirius got in no trouble, which he considered a bonus; it was an excellent prank.

When they got back to the common room, Sirius noticed that the next Hogsmeade weekend was in five days, on Valentine's Day. He had the strangest feeling in his chest that this would be a Valentine's Day he would never forget...


	9. Chapter 8

**Disclaimer - This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.**

_A/N – Previously this fic was at , but I have since gotten tired of the whole process of uploading it there._

As expected, the next couple of days passed without incident; Sirius and Katrina got a double detention for 'explicit behavior' in the Great Hall, and Peter was caught spying on Snape in the shower, but other than that, nothing major happened - until the day of the Hogsmeade trip, that is.

On the day it was scheduled, nobody could wake Sirius up. James tried splashing him with ice-cold water, Peter jumped up and down on his bed and Remus pulled him out of his bed and onto the floor with a huge bump, but all to no avail. They ended up just charming his clothes onto him and levitating him down to breakfast.

They sat him next to Katrina, who jumped when his head fell into his bowl of cereal. This woke him up.

"My hair!" he screamed, for there were now cornflakes and milk in his hair. He ran out of the Great Hall yelling something about getting revenge on the heathens who had ruined his beautiful hair.

Everybody in the Hall just ignored him. Just the Marauders being themselves, and they weren't pranking anybody, so there was no reason to worry.

After breakfast, Remus, Peter and James went up to the dormitory to find Sirius sulking on his bed.

"Come on, Padfoot, Katrina's waiting for you to take her to Hogsmeade for Valentine's Day," Remus coaxed.

"No." Sirius crossed his arms.

"Come on, you're not going to stand your girlfriend up on Valentine's Day, are you? And she got dressed all pretty...that nice, low-cut red shirt with those tight black jeans..."

Sirius's eyes lit up, and he was out of there before they knew what had happened. Remus smiled. He knew his plan would work.

They followed Sirius to the Entrance Hall, where they found a crowd of people scrambling for a position in the line to buy flowers and chocolates for their girlfriends, or, in some cases, boyfriends.

James joined the line. The others waited for him, avoiding being crushed by people frantic to get last-minute gifts or trying to get out the doors to Hogsmeade.

After a few minutes, James emerged from the throng, holding a bouquet of roses.

"Evans?" Sirius questioned. James nodded, trying to get some fresh air. "Come on then, guess we better find Katrina and Emma and get outta here." Sirius motioned for them to follow him.

"Where do you think they'll be?" asked James, catching up with them.

"Oh, I think I have an idea," said Remus, pointing to a group of girls gathered around what appeared to be a few dozen bouquets of roses on legs. Emma and Katrina were trying to see who was carrying them.

"Oh, Alice, you're so lucky," one of the girls from the middle sighed. Emma smiled to herself. Apparently, Frank really was as sweet as Alice said. She turned around and nearly walked straight into James, who was scanning the crowd of fawning girls for Lily.

She turned again and greeted Remus with a quick kiss. He pulled out a gift from behind his back, smiling as he did so. Her face lit up as she took it from his outstretched hands. She made to open it but he stopped her. "Not yet, later..." he said mysteriously. Her expression was full of curiosity, but she put the present carefully in her backpack anyway. Katrina looked on in interest, and a shadow of annoyance crossed her face, but it was only there for a split second, and Sirius, his eyes on her top, noticed nothing.

"Well, should we get going then?" asked Remus.

"Not yet! I haven't found Evans yet!" said James indignantly.

"Look, there she is, walking the long way round the lake; if you hurry, you can probably catch up to her," Peter pointed out.

"Okay, guys, I'll meet you in the Three Broomsticks!" James called over his shoulder as he ran to catch up with Lily.

"Evans! Hey, Evans!" he called as he got within ten meters of her. She turned around, saw who it was, and kept walking, picking up the pace a little.

Unfortunately for her, James caught up.

"What do you want, Potter?" she asked irritably, not looking at him.

"Well, I got you...uh, a Valentine's gift." He held out the flowers for her.

Lily smiled sweetly.

"Aww, that's so sweet of you, Potter, and I'm sure the giant squid will love them." She then whistled loudly through her thumb and forefinger and, indeed, the giant squid came floating lazily to the surface. She threw the flowers to it, and walked off. James looked on as the squid ate the bouquet of roses he had given Lily and felt an emotion he had never felt before: dismay. Of course, James didn't know how to react, so he shrugged, and walked slowly to Hogsmeade, where his friends were waiting for him.

* * * * *

He found the five of them sitting at a table, swigging Butterbeer. Sirius was holding several bouquets of roses and Katrina looked like she was sulking.

"Hey, Prongs, how'd it go?" Sirius questioned, looking up as James walked in.

"Great!" James answered. "As long as 'great' means she fed my present to the giant squid and walked off," he finished dejectedly.

"Ah, mate, don't worry, you can have any girl in the entire school," Sirius said in an attempt to comfort him. Emma cleared her throat. "Well, any single, straight girl, that is," Sirius amended. "And who's also not Lily Evans..."

"Sirius, shut up," Katrina said in an annoyed tone.

"Er, you wanna come with me, Emma? I have something important I have to talk to you about," Remus asked, sensing the gathering storm between Katrina and Sirius.

"Sure," Emma replied, happy to escape - Sirius and Katrina were now arguing; over _what_ was unclear.

As soon as they got outside, Remus led Emma to a quiet, secluded area around the side of the Three Broomsticks that Emma had never known about.

"Okay, open the present now," Remus told Emma nervously. She obligingly pulled it out of her backpack and carefully removed the wrapping paper, to reveal what appeared to be a stuffed, gray toy dog.

"It's a werewolf," Emma said to Remus, the slightest hint of a question in her voice, but also with a kind of knowing glint in her eye.

"Well, you see, that's what I wanted to talk to you about..." Remus started nervously.

"This is my biggest secret, and I don't want to keep it from you, but I don't want to frighten you away either..." Remus continued to babble. Emma looked down at the toy in her hands, then back to Remus, and something clicked.

"You're a werewolf, aren't you?" she questioned.

Remus looked alarmed. "How did you guess?" he asked.

"I'm very observant," Emma said, smiling. "Also, it doesn't scare me away, just makes you seem sexier and more intriguing to me. James, Sirius, and Pete all know, right?" she added.

Remus looked relieved and nodded. "They became Animagi to help my transformation become easier; James is a stag, Sirius is a dog and Peter is a rat," Remus explained further. "Katrina already knew, her family and mine have been friends for ages," he finished. "Shall we go back and see how the war is going in there, then?" He tilted his head toward the Three Broomsticks.

"Alright, but only if you promise to stand in my way if I get caught in the line of fire," she bargained. Remus winked and picked up her hand. "Come on, then, before there's a casualty." They walked in to find Katrina red-faced and shouting and Sirius cowering, looking confused, behind his chair.

"But you said you didn't want a Valentine's gift!" Sirius yelled at Katrina.

"Well, you should have gotten me one anyway! Don't you know how girls' minds work?" she rebutted.

"I think it's pretty obvious that I don't." At which point Katrina stormed out of the pub and could be seen walking back up to the castle.

"PMS," Emma said knowingly, and went to follow her friend to see if she could calm her down.


	10. Chapter 9

**Disclaimer - This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.**

_A/N – Previously this fic was at , but I have since gotten tired of the whole process of uploading it there._

Emma wondered where she would find Katrina after she had stormed out of the pub. They had shared a dormitory for four whole years, but had never really become close. Emma had always had the feeling Katrina thought she was a little weird - not that that was unusual, given that she was, but Katrina seemed a bit of a misfit as well.

Still, Emma had gotten to know Katrina a tiny bit, since neither of them enjoyed talking to the other girls in their dorm. Alice was always cooing about Frank and the other three girls were just obsessed with _pink_ _._ Awful colour, in Emma's opinion. She supposed Lily was alright but she always seemed a bit stuck up. So she had a vague idea where Katrina might be. Katrina was on the Gryffindor Quidditch team, as a Beater, so the first place Emma thought to look was the Quidditch pitch.

And indeed, she found Katrina furiously hitting Bludgers at the poor wizards trying to put the new goalposts up.

"Oi! Do you want these new posts or not?" shouted one of the wizards, who had just narrowly avoided falling off his broom dodging one of Katrina's well aimed Bludgers.

Emma grabbed one of the unused brooms the men had brought with them and flew up to hover next to Katrina.

"Hey, why'd you storm off like that?" she called over to her.

"None of your business," Katrina snapped back at her, ferociously hitting a Bludger at her head. Emma was forced to race around to Katrina's other side to avoid it.

"Come down, I want to talk to you!" Emma tried again. "I know we were never close friends, because, well, I wasn't really anybody's friend, was I? Come on, maybe we can chat a bit, get to know each other?" Emma suggested hopefully.

After hitting one more Bludger and having it bounce back off the post the men were putting up with a huge ringing sound, Katrina turned to Emma with a thoughtful yet begrudging look on her face.

"Alright then, if you're really that desperate for friends," she muttered, and flew down to where Emma was already standing, returning the broom she had borrowed from the workers.

"So why'd you rush out of the Three Broomsticks like that? I mean, you did tell Sirius you didn't want a Valentine's Day gift, and he is a guy; you can't really expect him to read your mind, can you?" Emma asked curiously.

"It's not that, it's just, well, I know how popular he is with girls, and seeing him getting all those flowers, and winking and flirting with all those girls, it just pissed me right off, you know?" responded Katrina.

"Yeah, I could see how that would happen," Emma said, thinking to herself how glad she was that Katrina was a Beater; she seemed like she had a lot of rage issues...

Katrina sighed. "I guess I'm just over-reacting, he's perfectly within his rights to flirt with other girls. I should go tell him I'm sorry and that all is forgiven and forgotten, I'm over it, thanks for all your help, Em." Katrina walked off.

Emma stood there in confusion, then shrugged. She didn't feel she had said very much but if Katrina felt she had helped, that was fine with her.

As Katrina walked off to find Sirius, she mulled things over in her mind.

_Hmm..._ _they'll probably have gone back to the common room by now, it's getting cold out...though I'm sure Sirius could help one of those girls he was hitting on to stay warm..._

No, she wasn't over it, it wasn't all forgiven and forgotten, but she didn't want to lose Sirius over something as stupid as him flirting with other girls, not after she had been after him - secretly - for so long. She would just pretend everything was alright, even if she hated lying to him - and herself.

"Hey!" yelled somebody behind her.

Katrina turned around to find Emma running towards her. When Emma reached her, she let her catch her breath before asking what was up.

"You're not really over it, are you?" asked Emma softly.

Katrina looked surprised, but nodded slowly.

"Hey, you don't have to forget about stuff straight away, you know - just explain to him why you rushed out of there, I'm sure he'll be glad to know what he's done wrong," Emma said reassuringly.

Katrina smiled. This Emma chick was alright - she knew what she was talking about.

They heard a yell from the Quidditch pitch.

"Shit!" swore Katrina. "I forgot to put that Bludger away!" She ran back to the pitch, apologizing to the men as she wrestled with the Bludger. Emma figured Katrina could handle it from here - both the Bludger and Sirius.

She walked into the second floor corridor just in time to see a bunch of girls run screaming from the toilets, and Sirius walking out behind them, dusting off his hands as though he had just accomplished a very difficult task and grinning like a madman.

Emma shook her head. She would never understand why Sirius enjoyed using the girls' loos and smiling when they ran away screaming.

He grinned some more then noticed Emma standing there looking tired.

"Hey, where's Kat?" he asked her.

"Looking for you to tell you off," she replied.

The grin slid off his face like stinksap.

"Is this about Hogsmeade? 'Cause I swear I didn't know she wanted a gift - how could I have known? I'm no mind reader here!" he said, beginning to get defensive.

Emma sighed. She foresaw a lot of her going back and forth between Katrina and Sirius in the future, trying to help sort out their relationship problems. She was somewhat friends with both of them, so they could ask her a favor or two, or three, but they weren't such good friends that she could just flat out refuse and smile like it was all a big joke.

"Never mind, Sirius, talk to her later." She continued to walk up to Gryffindor Tower, Sirius following her.

"I'm bored," he stated. "Tell me a story."

Emma thought for a minute how childish he sounded, then remembered a dream she had had the previous night.

"Well, once upon a time there was a magical castle called 'Office Works'. All the little stationary children went there to learn how to become good stationary so people would buy them. The Calculator was very smart; he was the smartest in his year. The Four-pen was a bully; he thought he was so great because he could change to four different colors, and he picked on the Scissors and called her emo because she sat in the corner cutting all day long. The Ruler was a goody two shoes - he was straight as an arrow and picked on the poor Sharpener and Pencil because of their lifestyle choices. One day, Pencil came to school only to find that there was a new boy. The new boy's name was Rubber. He thought Rubber looked very attractive, which upset Sharpener because he thought Pencil was being unfaithful to him. Pencil reassured Sharpener that he would never leave him, and then Sharpener started sharpening him right then and there. Just then, Ruler walked by. He looked disgusted at the other desk objects' behavior, and ran off to tell the teacher, Miss Pencil-case. He ran past Four-pen, who was making fun of Scissors again, and stopped in his tracks. He had always liked Scissors. He thought of a way he could defend Scissors against mean old Four-pen, but was saved the trouble when Miss Pencil-case came out to see what was going on. She admonished Pencil and Sharpener for behaving inappropriately in the schoolyard, then put Four-pen in detention for bullying. Scissors smiled shyly at Ruler, and they went off into the old pencil tin that nobody used anymore. Four-pen stopped bullying Scissors because Ruler was bigger than him, and because Ruler was busy with Scissors all the time, he stopped making fun of Pencil and Sharpener. They decided they'd have a threesome with Rubber, and Calculator got with Miss Pencil-case. The end," Emma finished.

Sirius just stared blankly at her, and then curled up into a ball on the floor and started sobbing and rocking back and forth. Emma rolled her eyes. She hadn't thought her story was _that _horrible. She rolled Sirius all the way up to the seventh floor corridor, where she found Katrina waiting outside the portrait hole, tapping her foot impatiently. When she saw Sirius, her jaw dropped.

"What...what did you do to him?!" she asked Emma in a high-pitched voice.

"He asked me to tell him a story, so I did - you wanna hear it?" Emma responded.

"NO!" screamed Sirius from the floor, then he jumped up and ran back down the hallway.

"Great, I spend all that time and energy looking like an idiot rolling him up all those flights of stairs, and now he just goes and falls right back down them again," she muttered to herself, watching Sirius lose his footing at the top of the stairs and bounce all the way down the sixth floor corridor.

"I'm going to go talk to him now, thanks for all your help, and thanks for telling him that story...I think...Do I want to know?" Katrina asked fearfully.

Emma shook her head, smiling that scary insane smile she sometimes got. Katrina backed away slowly from her newfound friend, and almost tripped down the stairs too, but she caught herself at the last moment, turned slowly and ran down to Sirius. Emma just stood there and smiled crazily, and eventually went into the common room.


	11. Chapter 10

**Disclaimer - This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.**

_A/N – Previously this fic was at , but I have since gotten tired of the whole process of uploading it there._

It was the next morning at breakfast. Katrina had talked things over with Sirius, and he'd promised to behave himself from now on, and Emma had come down from her crazy soap opera about office supplies. Emma was reading her Transfiguration textbook; she wanted to learn how to turn water into wine, that age-old spell she had heard so much about.

"Hey, Emma, can I borrow your Transfiguration textbook? I need to study," Sirius asked her.

"You only want the book because I'm using it," she countered. "Observe: Peter isn't drinking his drink." Emma took Peter's pumpkin juice.

"Hey, that's my drink!" said Peter indignantly.

"Gimme the drink, gimme the drink!" Emma handed Peter's drink to Sirius, who promptly threw it at Peter when he realized he didn't actually want it.

Sirius then spotted a bowl of fruit.

"Hey, bananas!" he said excitedly. He immediately unpeeled one and started deep-throating it. The others watched in awe.

"Erm, Sirius?" asked Remus tentatively. "Do we want to know?"

Sirius shook his head solemnly and ate the rest of the banana.

"Hey, James?" Sirius asked, wiping his mouth with his sleeve. "Don't you have a Quidditch match today?"

James looked around. "SHIT!" And he took off.

The others finished their breakfast pretty quickly and walked down to the Quidditch pitch, where they found seats right in the middle of the grandstand.

"Hey, you guys, I'm gunna visit the little girls' room before the match starts, k?" Emma said.

They nodded absentmindedly, eyes on the players warming up for the Gryffindor vs. Hufflepuff match. Hufflepuff were usually hopeless but this year they had put together a really good team. Emma pointed at her bag. "Stay," she said firmly, before squeezing along the aisle, avoiding most of the guys with grabbing hands.

Snape, who was sitting behind them, but slouching in his seat so they wouldn't recognize him, slowly pulled her bag over the back of her seat and hid it under his own. The others, eyes on the game, did not notice Emma's bag running away - or rather, sneaking off.

Snape shimmied along his aisle - he really didn't care if he missed the game; he didn't give a shit about Quidditch - and took Emma's bag back to his room. He estimated he would have about a half hour to execute his revenge plan on Remus for that time in the Great Hall, with the stripping and such - he knew he would only have such a short time because James, insufferable, puffed-up Gryffindor that he was, was a very good Seeker.

Emma came back to see the players just lining up to start.

"Excellent," she whispered to herself, "I haven't missed anything, then."

She looked around to see Remus, Sirius and Peter with their eyes still glued to the field. Her gaze then fell upon her seat, and she saw that her bag was no longer there.

"Damn, disobedient bag..." she muttered.

She decided to forget about it for now - one of the guys had probably taken it as a joke - and settled down to watch the match. She saw Katrina furiously hitting Bludgers at the Hufflepuff Chasers - man, that girl had a deadly arm. She had already knocked two of them off their brooms, and it was only the first five minutes! Hufflepuff tried valiantly to win, but, despite the improved skills of this year's players, they were still no match for Gryffindor. The score was 120 - 30, and that was before James caught the Snitch. The final score was 270 - 30. Hufflepuff didn't take it so well. Emma watched them storm off the pitch in disgust; one of them even broke her broom and shouted that she resigned, since they were so hopeless. Emma looked around.

"Hey, have any of you guys seen my b-" She spotted her bag lying underneath her seat. "Erm, never mind, guess it was here all along..." she said confusedly.

They went down to congratulate their friends on a great game as they came out of the changing rooms.

"Hey, nice Bludger work out there, babe; remind me not to get on your bad side," Sirius joked to Katrina, who was looking flushed but pleased at having caused some physical injuries to other people. She grabbed his arm.

"Come on, you. I got some energy left to burn still and you're gunna help me get rid of it." Katrina then dragged Sirius into the broom shed.

"Er...what are they doing?" questioned Peter.

"Honestly, Pete, how naïve are you?" asked James. "They're obviously in there having hot, crazy, naked sex right now, to burn off Katrina's excess energy."

"No, they're not," Emma interjected. "Katrina told me she's not going to sleep with Sirius for a year or so, see how seriously he takes her."

"Really? Well then, what are they doing in there?" James asked, looking bewildered.

Emma shrugged.

*******

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Sirius asked sincerely.

"Yeah, I've waited my whole life to do this and, well, you're the only person I could ever consider doing it with," Katrina answered breathlessly.

"I mean, it takes some flexibility and endurance," he explained.

"I know, I'm ready," she responded.

"Okay, do you want me to start?" Sirius asked.

"Yeah, I think that would be best," Katrina answered nervously.

"Okay then, ready?"

"Yep."

"Right...left hand blue."

Katrina put her left hand on a blue circle on the white mat.

"Your go," she said.

"Yep, right foot red."

"Right hand yellow."

"Left hand green."

"Left foot yellow."

"Right foot blue."

"Oh man, I can't believe you've never played Twister before!" said Sirius, laughing; Katrina's hair was tickling his nose.

"I know, everybody I know has played it and say they are too old to do it, so I had pretty much resigned myself to going through life Twister-less, then you came along!" Katrina replied, her voice slightly muffled where her face was pressed into her arm. "It's your turn, by the way," she reminded Sirius. Holding his wand in his teeth, he pointed it at the spinner.

"Oh great, left foot yellow," he said, sighing. He attempted to get his foot under Katrina, where the yellow circles were.

"Quit it, you're tickling me!" gasped Katrina, for Sirius's foot was, indeed, rubbing lightly on her stomach, making her giggle.

"Oh really?" He grinned mischievously.

"Sirius, don't you dare, that's cheati- Sirius! Stop! You're going to make me f-!" They both came crashing down on top of each other, laughing hysterically.

"Wow, I can't believe I spent my whole life without the thrill of Twister," Katrina panted incredulously, lifting herself off the floor - and Sirius - and dusting herself down.

"Until now, that is," Sirius amended.

"Yep, until now," she agreed.

"You wanna play again another time?" he questioned, smiling.

"Most definitely," she agreed enthusiastically.

"Man, I never thought I'd find a girl who liked playing Twister," Sirius said, shaking his head disbelievingly. "You are by far the most unusual girl I've ever met; that's why I like you so much."

Katrina smiled, packing up the game.

"Better than all the beautiful people you've met?" she asked curiously.

"Er...beautiful people?" Sirius was now very confused.

"You know...popular people, the ones that fit in," she explained.

"Oh, them. No way, those guys are just sheep; they're so boring. You're something special," he reassured her, smiling.

"Well, isn't this a side of you I've never seen before," Katrina teased him, straightening up.

"Yeah, well, it's not a side that I generally let show," he said, slightly uncomfortable that she should make him act like this.

"Hmm... Maybe you should." Katrina left it at that. "Come on, slow coach, the others probably think we're having hot, crazy, naked sex in here," she said, unknowingly quoting James.

"Haha, yeah, silly friends..." Sirius picked himself up off the floor, finally, and followed Katrina out the shed door.

"Whoa...how long were we in there?" he asked, blinking. The sun had started to set, causing a pink-purple light to wash over the grounds.

"No idea, but this is really pretty, huh?" Katrina mused. "Pink ain't so bad like this..."

"Yeah, and the purple - purple is my favourite colour..." Sirius said dreamily, staring over the grounds.

"I know it's cliché, but do you wanna sit here and watch the sun go down?" he asked, shuffling his feet, only to look up and see Katrina already sitting on the grass, staring at the horizon. He sat down beside her and nervously put his arm around her shoulders. She snuggled into him. This was a gentle, vulnerable side of Katrina he had never seen before. He guessed they'd both learnt something today.

*******

When they finally arrived back in the common room it was to find Emma, Peter, Remus and James all gathered around the one table. Emma casually looked up.

"I just saw you naked," she stated, matter-of-factly.

Sirius spluttered.

"Hey, Sirius, remember how your mother used to drop you off at daycare with me?" James asked. "Well, my mother took photos of you...look." And he showed Sirius a picture of him running around a sprinkler completely starkers, nothing but his birthday suit on.

"JAMES!" he bellowed, grabbing the book and chasing James round the common room, beating him over the head with it whenever he caught him. Emma laughed. "Hey, this is better than the movies! Who wants popcorn?" she asked, reaching into her bag to pull out her wand for some popcorn conjuring. As she was getting it, several other items fell out. Remus picked up a piece of paper curiously. "What's this?" he asked.

"I...don't know," answered Emma honestly, shrugging.

"Dear Emma, thanks for the wild ride last night, I didn't think anybody could ever be that flexible. Can't wait to see you again; here are some more condoms for you, maybe you can practice before tonight and put it on me yourself instead of making me do it,"

Remus read out. James and Sirius stopped acting like idiots to see what the hell was going on. Katrina picked up a pack of 'family sized' condoms, and the little plastic bag that had also fallen out.

"P.S. - I'm giving you back the ones from last night so you can dispose of them; I don't want anybody to know anything," Remus finished.

Moments after picking up the plastic bag, Katrina shrieked, and dropped it back to the floor like a hot coal.

Remus looked up at Emma, disbelief and hurt etched in his features.

"Emma..." he asked quietly. "What's going on?"


	12. Chapter 11

**Disclaimer - This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.**

_A/N – Previously this fic was at , but I have since gotten tired of the whole process of uploading it there._

Remus was confused - had Emma really cheated on him? It certainly appeared so. Rather than storm off up to his dorm as James would have done, he just sat there in bewilderment. He then realized somebody was talking to him.

"...Swear I didn't, I'd never do something like that to you, or anybody," Emma finished.

Remus didn't know what to think. He didn't really believe Emma would have given somebody a 'wild ride' but all the evidence pointed to that fact.

"Who was he?" Remus asked quietly.

"Nobody! Remus, I didn't do anything, don't you believe me?" Emma answered, almost in tears.

"I- I'm sorry, I don't know what to think," Remus replied, looking down.

"Here, I'll help. Emma was with us most of yesterday afternoon, then she came and talked to me for about half an hour, after I stormed out of The Three Broomsticks, then - Em, where'd you go after that?" Katrina attempted to help sort out this mess.

"She was with me," Sirius spoke up unexpectedly.

Remus looked up sharply. "You?"

"No, not like that!" Sirius hastily amended. "She came in from outside-"

"Where she had been talking to me," Katrina interjected.

"Yes, then she walked up to Gryffindor dormitory with me," Sirius finished.

"Where she came in and helped me with my Potions homework," Peter added helpfully.

"Okay...Now I know more facts it seems even less likely that you were off shagging some other guy. Sorry I doubted you..." Remus now fully believed Emma.

Emma smiled weakly.

"What I want to know is how the notes and things got into her bag in the first place," Katrina said thoughtfully.

"Well...I went to the bathroom just before the Quidditch match started, and when I came back my bag was missing, but I found it under my seat later on and just figured it was there the whole time," supplied Emma.

"I'm guessing somebody nicked it then put it back there later, but who'd want to cause such problems with you and Remus? And, may I add, it was very badly done. Too much to be believable," Katrina responded.

Now that Remus thought about it, it did seem rather over-done.

They thought about who would want to cause Remus such confusion, making him think his girlfriend was a cheater, cause strife amongst the ranks of the Marauders and friends...

"Snape," they came to the conclusion in unison.

"Oh, I'll bet it was! He's probably still mad for that dare we made you do, probably thinks it was all your idea!" Sirius said angrily.

"The problem is: what are we going to do about it?" James questioned.

They sat in silence for a few more minutes, thinking of a suitable revenge tactic.

Sirius spoke up hopefully. "We could - Oh no, that would never work..."

Now the others were curious. "What?" Emma pressed.

"Well...I was going to say that we could replace his shampoo with baby oil, it would make his hair really greasy and disgusting, at least for a little while," he suggested.

"Good start...but we need to do more..." James mused.

"We charm it to be permanent?" Peter put forward awkwardly, surprising everybody by having an idea.

"Pete, that's excellent!" James grinned like a lunatic. "The only question is: how shall we do it?"

"I'll do some research tomorrow," promised Remus, who had been fairly quiet all through the discussion.

"Excellent. Good work, Peter!" Sirius praised the smaller boy. Peter beamed; he loved it when his friends congratulated him. It made him feel as though he was really a part of the group, a real Marauder.

They went quietly up to bed, each of them thinking about what would happen the next day.

* * * * *

"I've got it!" Remus exclaimed, slamming a book down in front of James, who was jolted out of his reverie of watching Lily pick out all the raisins of her raisin bread sandwich.

"Well, what is it?" Sirius asked quickly.

"It's really simple actually, it's a spell called 'Now and Forevermore,' it makes something last forever, so even if he shaved his head it would still grow back as greasy as before!" Remus informed.

"That's great!"

"Yeah, good work, Moony!"

"What's the incantation?" Katrina asked curiously.

"All you have to do is wave your wand over the item you want to charm - in this case Snape's baby oil-filled shampoo bottle - three times, in swift, fast movements, and say '_per sempre lo stesso,'_" Remus said excitedly.

"That doesn't sound like Latin..." Sirius mused.

"It's not, it's Italian; Italian witches made up the spell so that their houses would never move with earthquakes and things. I think it translates to 'forever the same'."

"Oh, that makes sense. When are we going to do it? And also, how will we get the bottle into the Slytherin bathrooms, and make sure Snape uses it?" James asked.

"That's easy, I can ask Regulus to give it to Snape as a gift, make him tell him it's from a secret admirer or something," Sirius countered.

"How are you going to manage that?" Peter questioned.

"I have my ways..." Sirius said mysteriously. Nobody asked what he meant.

"Okay, so I'll put the baby oil in a shampoo bottle and charm it, then you can get your brother to give it to Snape," Remus concluded.

"Excellent, now break!" Sirius said in a commanding tone.

"Sirius... Stop watching those movies," James advised.

"Right." Sirius blushed.

* * * * *

Later that night, as the four boys were just leaving dinner, they heard a yell from the dungeons. They grinned at each other and watched as a furious Snape ran up from the direction of the dungeons wearing nothing but a pair of trousers. His hair was dripping wet, but had taken on a decidedly slicker tone.

"You did this!" he screamed at them. He pulled out his wand and suddenly James found himself hanging in the air by what seemed to be an invisible rope tied to his ankle.

"Hey!" he yelled, his face turning red as the blood rushed to his head. "Put me down, you slimy git!"

"What did you do? Why won't it come out? Tell me!" Snape seemed to be losing all sanity.

"Mr. Snape, what do you think you are doing?!?" McGonagall had just walked out of the hall to find Snape standing there in only his trousers, dripping all over the floor, and pointing his wand at James, who was dangling upside down in the air.

"LOOK WHAT THEY DID TO ME!" Snape screamed at her, pointing at his hair.

"Professor! He can't prove we did it! How would we do it anyway?" Sirius protested as James struggled in the air.

"Snape! Let down Mr. Potter at once!" McGonagall commanded.

Snape grudgingly let James fall roughly to the floor.

"Now, if you have no proof these boys did anything to you, go back to your common room! And put a shirt on for Godric's sake!" McGonagall watched as Snape sent one last death glare at James and Sirius, who returned it with malice, then walked quickly back to his common room in the dungeons. She turned to Sirius and James.

"Now, as we have no proof of your hand in this matter, you're free to go. However, I do not believe you are innocent in this incident. Nice spell work, and it's about time somebody taught that little snot a lesson, always bragging about his Potions scores, he does get on my nerves..." McGonagall smiled at them. They stood there in shock as she walked back into the great hall to finish dinner.

"Well that was..." Sirius searched for an appropriate word.

"Unexpected," James finished in a monotone, staring at the spot where McGonagall had been standing.

"Never thought old Minnie would be one for breaking the rules. Guess the old bird's just full of surprises. Well, she is a Gryffindor after all," Sirius commented, mirroring James's expression of disbelief.

"Well who'd have thought Remus would be the head of one of our pranks? After all, he did the spell to make the oil permanent," James shook himself out of his shocked trance.

"Yeah...come on; let's go see what's happening back at Gryffindor tower..." Sirius said slowly.

James shrugged, and followed him back to Gryffindor tower where a very large surprise awaited him.


	13. Chapter 12

**Disclaimer - This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.**

_A/N – Previously this fic was at , but I have since gotten tired of the whole process of uploading it there._

As James and Sirius neared the Gryffindor common room, they could hear talking and laughing.  
"Snozzwangler," James said absent-mindedly to the Fat Lady.  
"Right you are, evil little beggars they are too," replied the Fat Lady, as she swung forward to admit them.  
They entered the circular room to see a crowd of students gathered around one of the most comfortable couches.  
"...and see here, this is Mr. Fluffles, James never used to part with that silly stuffed monkey..." they heard a voice say from in the midst of the crowd.  
"Hold on," said Sirius slowly. "That sounds like..."  
"Mum!" James yelled in surprise as the crowd parted and he could clearly see his mother through the throng. "What are you doing here?"  
"Well, James, I was cleaning out your bedroom, you know how much of a mess it is, the only time it ever gets cleaned is when you're away, and as I was going through some boxes in your closet, I found a heap of your old toys and clothes!" James's mother replied.  
And indeed, sitting next to her was an old cardboard box filled with old clothes and toys.  
"And I thought, maybe you'd want some of them back?" she added.  
"Mother, if I'd wanted them, here, with me, at Hogwarts, I would never have shoved them in that box in the first place," James said, blushing as she held up an old sailor's uniform.  
"Oh, remember when you wore this for one Halloween? You looked so adorable! Hold on, I think I've got a picture in here somewhere..." she was now rummaging through her handbag. "Oh! Here it is!" she was now holding up a picture of a smiling little boy with messy black hair and glasses who was waving at everybody, and he was, indeed, wearing a little sailor's outfit. White hat with blue ribbon and all.  
"MUM!" James shouted as the entire common room burst into laughter.  
"Aww, you looked so cute back then, Jamsie," said a seventh year girl, pinching his cheeks.  
"Yeah, why don't you wear stuff like that anymore?" teased a boy in sixth year.  
James shrugged them off angrily. "Mother, can I talk to you?" he said, trying to keep his voice calm.  
"Why, of course dear!" she replied, looking a little alarmed, possibly because James was grinding his teeth audibly. James and his mother left the common room, closing the portrait behind them.

Sirius snickered. "Heh... bet old Prongs never saw that one coming, eh?" he said, nudging Remus. Remus chuckled.  
"No, and I don't expect he's too happy about it either. What do you suggest we do with this stuff?" he asked, gesturing at the boxes that had been left there.  
Sirius looked at him and grinned. "Well...what do you think we should do?"  
Remus looked doubtful. "I don't know...James might not be too happy about it..."  
He and Sirius looked at each other, and then simultaneously started rummaging through the boxes with identical smirks on their faces.

* * * * *

"Look, I really don't appreciate you coming here and embarrassing me like this, Mother! If I had wanted to see all my old toys and things, I would have asked!" James said patiently to his mother.  
"Yes, I know, but I thought it would be a nice surprise, for me to visit you..." she replied doubtfully.  
"Yes, it certainly was a surprise..." James muttered to himself. "How did you even get in, anyway?" he spoke up, addressing his mother once more.  
"Oh, Professor Dumbledore let me in! I explained about everything, and he said that it would be lovely..." she clarified.  
_Dumbledore, that old coot... of course, he would've thought this would be 'lovely', _thought James.  
"Well, mum, next time, warn me when you're going to show up here and kill my social life, okay?" James smiled.  
"Of course dear, I didn't mean to embarrass..."  
"It's okay, come on, let's go back in, get rid of all that - wait...you left all the stuff in there?!" he asked worriedly.  
"Well, yes, you asked me to come out here to talk; I wasn't going to bring the boxes with me..."  
James paled. Sirius was in there...with boxes of old baby photos, and toys, and outfits...He turned to the Fat Lady. "Quick, let us back in!" he said hurriedly.  
"Password?" she replied steadily.  
"Never mind that, you saw us come out less than a minute ago! Just let us in!" James was getting quite worked up.  
The Fat Lady looked at him. "Password?" she said again.  
"Oh for the love of- Snozzwangler!" he stated the password angrily.  
"There, that wasn't so hard, was it?" she asked him, obviously enjoying tormenting him.  
"Sure, whatever, can we go in now?"  
The Fat Lady swung forward to allow them entrance. James shoved his way through the portrait hole, looking around worriedly.  
_Where is he? _  
He thought, looking around for his best friend. Sirius waved pleasantly from the corner, where he was standing with Remus. James rushed over to them, tripping on something, but he didn't stop to see what.  
"What did you do?" he asked threateningly.  
Sirius held up his hands in mock offence. "Us? What could we have done?"  
James glared. "Do you honestly think that I'd believe that you, Sirius Black, were left in a room with my baby photos and toys, and did absolutely nothing?"  
"Hmm. Good point," Sirius answered thoughtfully. "But...can you prove anything?" he asked, a grin returning to his face.  
James opened his mouth to speak, but then closed it angrily. He looked as though he wanted to say something to Sirius, but instead decided against it and stormed off up the stairs to the dormitory.  
"Hmm...don't you think that was a bit much?" asked Remus, mock-worriedly.  
"Well...I don't know...but imagine the look on his face tomorrow!" Sirius replied, pulling some photos out of his pocket.

* * * * *

The next day James walked into the Great Hall warily, looking around for any signs of a Sirius-prank. Spotting none, he went over to join Remus, Emma and Katrina at the Gryffindor table, where they had obviously arrived before him.  
"Katrina-chan... Won't you tell me you love me?" asked Emma in an annoying voice, sitting on Katrina's lap.  
"Get OFF, Emma!" Katrina said in an annoyed tone, trying to shove Emma off her. Emma just wrapped her arms around her neck and attempted to bite her ear.  
"What's going on?" asked James bemusedly as he sat down and grabbed a piece of toast.  
Remus shrugged. "Who knows...she's Emma."  
"Katriiiiina-chan...pay attention to me!" Emma said, bouncing up and down on Katrina's knees.  
"This has everything to do with me eating the last of your chocolate, doesn't it?" Katrina asked tiredly. Emma nodded, smiling.  
"What's 'chan' mean?" James asked, buttering a waffle.  
"It's a Japanese suffix, usually added to the end of female names, however it's often used to show that you think the person is cute," Emma tried to explain.  
"Exactly!" Sirius threw himself down into a seat next to James.  
"Sirius, don't try to pretend you know what I'm talking about, go hide in a corner and jack off," Emma told him cheerily.  
"Sorry, not today, I've got a pre-booked arrangement," Sirius replied, smirking. Emma stared at him for a few seconds, debating whether to ask about this so called 'pre-booked arrangement', but seemed to decide that poking Katrina in the nose was a better use of her time.  
"You know...this isn't really _that_ annoying..." Katrina stated, attempting to reach around Emma for some pancakes. Emma casually pushed the pancakes a few centimeters away, stopping Katrina from reaching them.  
Without looking up from the _Daily Prophet, _Remus passed the plate of pancakes to Katrina. Emma immediately swiped them, somehow managing to fit all five remaining pancakes in her mouth. Katrina scowled. "I was going to eat those."  
"I know," replied Emma, though it came out more like 'Ungaw'.  
"Ladies and Gentleman!" boomed a voice from somewhere above them. "May I present to you...James Potter, discovering the potty!" a picture of an incredibly young James appeared, with his head in the toilet. After a few seconds, he withdrew his head and grinned at everyone, his soaking hair flopping into his eyes.  
Sirius continued in his voice over. "Now, let's watch James on his very first broomstick!" A picture appeared. James wasn't so much riding the toy broomstick as attempting to see how much of it he could fit into his mouth, then his nose.  
"And haven't we always wondered why our Gryffindor Golden Boy always looks so _fabulous_? Well, here's your answer!" a picture of James when he was about six or seven appeared. This particular picture showed him wearing a long blond wig, one of his mother's bras and her high heels, with lipstick all over his face.  
"SIRIUS BLACK!" James and McGonagall bellowed in unison.  
Grinning, Sirius quickly fled the scene, chased by a fuming James who was swearing revenge.  
_Like he could ever think of a way to get me back..._  
Sirius thought to himself as he ran up the stairs. James turned a corner and slipped over onto the floor.  
Looking up he saw Sirius disappear around a corner. Pulling himself up, he shouted "SIRIUS! I'M GOING TO KILL YOU!" And as soon as the words came out of his mouth, he was being forcefully restrained by McGonagall.


	14. Chapter 13

**Disclaimer - This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.**

_A/N – Previously this fic was at , but I have since gotten tired of the whole process of uploading it there._

About a week later, on a rather mild Saturday morning, Emma walked down into the common room to find everybody gathered already. Remus and Peter were playing Wizard Chess, Sirius was pointing his wand at an old piece of parchment, James was staring at Lily and Katrina was watching the tiny chess pieces beat each other up, egging them on excitedly.

"Hey, Sirius, have you seen my underwear?" Emma started casually.

"Oh, yeah, they're on the top of one of the posts on my bed," Sirius answered without looking up from what he was doing. Remus gave them a suspicious look.

"Oh no, Remus! It's okay; we were just having a competition to see who could get it stuck up the highest!" Katrina explained hurriedly.

"How did you take your underwear off without Sirius seeing?" James was momentarily drawn out of his Lily induced stupor.

"All females can take their undergarments off without showing anything. Watch," Emma stated, reaching under her shirt to unhook her bra. After a few seconds she pulled it out and held it up. "There, see?" she finished.

All the male eyes in the common room turned to stare at her.

"Who won?" Peter piped up.

"Yes…well…disregarding that, you know it's a full moon tonight, right Moony?" said Sirius, attempting to avert his eyes as Emma struggled to put her bra back on.

"Of course Sirius, how could I forget?" Remus said dryly.

"Er, right. Well, we going with the usual plan then?" he asked.

"Why wouldn't we?" Remus asked in confusion.

"No reason, just wondering," Sirius turned back to the parchment he'd been working on.

Remus slowly turned back to the chess game, only to see that his queen had decided that she and his king weren't meant for each other, and had run over to join the other side of the board. He sighed. Muggle chess was so much easier, when the little pieces didn't all have personalities…

* * * * *

James shook Sirius awake. Sirius slapped his hands away angrily. "Five more minutes…" he mumbled.

"Sirius! We have to go! Moony, Shrieking Shack, remember?" James said urgently.

Sirius shot up on the couch. "Right! Where's the cloak?" he asked, looking around.

James pulled it out from one of his seemingly bottomless pockets, swinging it around himself and Sirius as he did so.

"Where's Wormtail?" Sirius asked. A large rat poked its nose out of James's shirt pocket. "Ah, good idea, it is getting a bit hard to fit us all under here," Sirius whispered.

They crept out of the portrait hole, the Fat Lady rolling her eyes as she heard a whispered _"Dammit James! Stop stepping on my feet!" "Maybe I wouldn't step on your feet if they weren't so huge!"_ There was a sound of flesh colliding with flesh, and _"Ow! Sirius!"_

They spotted Dumbledore going for a late night stroll around the third corridor, so they took a detour through a secret passageway hidden behind a picture of Gwendolyn the Gassy, which took them right down to the entrance hall. With a whispered '_Alohomora,'_ they were out onto the castle grounds.

"James, look!" Sirius hissed, elbowing James in the ribs as he did so. Rubbing his ribs, James looked in the direction Sirius was pointing – it seemed that McGonagall had just sent Remus down the tunnel under the Whomping Willow, and was walking straight towards them. Hastily getting out of her way, they practically ran the rest of the way to the Willow.

"Go on, Wormtail," James whispered urgently to the rat, setting it on the ground where it ran right to the stump of the homicidal tree, and put its small paws on a knot in the trunk, causing the man-slaughtering branches to stop flailing about violently.

James folded the invisibility cloak and put it in a small hole near the base of the trunk, before removing his glasses and putting them on top. "Right, ready Padfoot?" he asked, squinting at where Sirius had been standing. A loud bark answered him.

"Right, you know the drill, you go first, I can't transform 'till we get to the end,"

The large dog that had once been Sirius held up a paw and cocked its head.

"Oh, don't play dumb with me," he admonished it. The dog wagged its tail and disappeared down the small tunnel under the tree's roots, James following. Wormtail hopping onto his shoulder as he walked, then stooped, down the long, winding tunnel that he had trekked many times before. He heard growling from up ahead – obviously Remus could sense they were coming. A loud, high-pitched yelp followed. It sounded like Sirius had reached the end. Speeding up, he slowly pushed his head out of the hole in the floor, seeing Padfoot struggling to keep Moony away from the tunnel. Hastily pulling himself out, he immediately transformed into a large stag. Moony leapt past Padfoot and went flying straight at James – Prongs. Prongs bowed his head and used his antlers to fling the werewolf into the opposite wall. Padfoot raised his hackles and bared his teeth as Moony got back to his feet. After several minutes of shared growling and attempted attacks, Moony finally calmed down enough to sniff Padfoot, recognizing him as a friend. Padfoot, of course, took this as a perfect opportunity to decide to wrestle with Moony.

Prongs let out a frustrated snort, tossing his head towards the door. Padfoot looked up and let his tongue hang out as he once again cocked his head to the side. Prongs rolled his eyes – an action that would have been much more effective if a stag rolling its eyes didn't just look demented. Padfoot snorted, probably with laughter, though it was hard to tell with dogs.

Trotting over to the door, Prongs lifted the latch with one of his antlers, and the door swung open.

His ears pricking up as the scent of the fresh night air reached his nose, Moony turned to look out onto the sleeping village of Hogsmeade.

Prongs gave Moony a warning look, the wolf baring his teeth in reply, but calming down nonetheless. Padfoot and Prongs escorted Moony out, Wormtail sitting on Prongs' head, squeaking every now and again when Moony would look up at him, a savage look in his eyes.

The strange group of animals walked down one of the main streets, Padfoot bounding off every so often to chase a rabbit or squirrel, but always returning at Prongs' loud grunting. Moony sniffed eagerly at the bases of small trees, Prongs watching him warily the entire time. Just then, a small cat dashed across the path in front of them, and, letting out simultaneous excited barks, Moony and Padfoot each rushed after it. Prongs shook his head, letting Wormtail know to hold on, and took off after the two. Moony dashed into the forest, and Prongs followed, finally catching up with him and jabbing him in the side with his antlers. Shepherding the seemingly abashed werewolf back to the main street, he only just realized that their party was missing one.

A loud yelp came from just beyond the trees, and Prongs rushed over to see what was happening.

Padfoot was engaged in a battle with a man who had some sort of contraption around the dog's neck, and was trying to pull him into a truck of some kind. Padfoot attempted to bite the man's foot, but the man jerked away, causing Padfoot to yelp in pain as the thing around his neck tightened. Getting behind the large dog, the man was able to shove him into the back of the truck and slam the door shut on Padfoot's frenzied barking.

"Stupid mutt…" he muttered, getting in the vehicle and driving off. Prongs watched worriedly as Padfoot's head appeared repeatedly at the small window at the top of the doors, but couldn't go after him, lest Moony run rampant on the village.

Moony growled behind him, sensing something was amiss, and Prongs hastily shoved him back towards the Shack, where they would have no choice but to wait out the night.


	15. Chapter 14

**Disclaimer - This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoat Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.**

Remus groaned as he woke up.

"Ow…" he muttered, rubbing his side, looking down to see a large bruise forming. He winced. A pair of trousers landed on his head.

"Get up," James' voice ordered, and Remus blinked at the tone.

"James, something wrong?" he asked drowsily, tugging the trousers over his legs.

James looked out the window anxiously. "It's Sirius…" he started, ambiguously.

"Oh God, Sirius. I didn't attack him, did I?" panic edging itself into Remus' voice.

"What? No, nothing like that," James answered. "We had a run-in with a Muggle dog-catcher…it looked like he was from the Muggle town to the North," he mused, ignoring Remus' look of relief.

Peter tugged nervously on James' sleeve. "Are you sure they won't notice we're gone?" he asked. James cast a glance in Remus' direction.

"I'll have to go back, won't I?" Remus realised. James nodded, thankful that he had caught on so quickly.

"Madam Pomfrey will be here soon. Don't worry, we'll go and collect the moron," James reassured him, smiling.

Remus smiled back. "You'd best get going, then. Good luck," he added, pushing James and Peter towards the door.

"Sure. See you in a bit," James grinned, pulling open the same door that had started all of their troubles the previous night, and ushering Peter out of it.

"Do you even know where to go?" Peter asked as they skirted towards the edge of town, where they had last seen their missing troublemaker.

"Not a clue, Pete. Not a clue," James replied rather cheerfully, starting down the road.

* * * * *

Sirius carefully watched what was going on, and once sure nobody was going to come check on him or the other prisoners, he transformed back into a human being. He looked around in disgust. If there was anything he never wanted to do again, it was return to a jail cell like this.

All around him were the calls of other dogs, barking, howling and crying out to each other. He sighed. Hopefully some of these animals could find homes again, but even he wasn't foolish enough to believe that.

"Hey, what are you doing in there?" a voice cut him out of his reverie. It seemed that somebody had come in to feed the captured beasts, and Sirius was finally found.

He smiled, trying to win the young man over with his wit. "Well, mate, I'm not too sure about that. I was heading home after celebrating my best friend's…stag night, and all of a sudden one of your men jumps on me, starts calling me a filthy mutt and shoving me into a van – next thing I know, here I am," he announced, spreading his arms wide to prove that he was human.

The only response he got was a raised eyebrow. "You're telling me that one of our staff mistook you for a canine, and locked you up here overnight?" he asked doubtfully.

Sirius nodded. "Indeed. You know, I really think you should stop letting them into the drink…" he added cautiously, testing for a reaction. The young assistant smiled a little at that.

"I'm sorry to leave you here, but this is a most unusual case. Let me go get my manager," he suggested. Sirius shrugged.

"I'm not going anywhere."

The young man walked off, leaving Sirius alone with the disturbing sounds all around him.

"I swear, if I can get back to Hogwarts today, I'll take at least one of you home," he muttered, waiting for the manager to show up. He looked down to see a small hole in the wall behind him, and, it may have been from watching far too many Muggle movies that summer with James, but thoughts of escape started rushing through his brain.

Sirius dropped to his knees to examine it, and was met with a paw in the face. He sat up, startled, and scooted back on his knees slightly, reaching out his hand to the opening.

An extremely dirty white paw reached out to grab him, and he pressed his face to the ground to see what it was. A curious, orange and black face peered back at him, letting out a pitiful 'mew' sound when it saw him.

"Oh, hello there," he muttered. "Guess that side is for cats, huh?" he pulled his hand back, and the paw stretched through the hole trying to grab it again, swiping uselessly.

"So what are you in for?" he joked, poking at paw slowly, letting it hook tiny claws into him before pulling away. The kitten pressed its face to the hole, looking at Sirius seriously with one big, green eye.

"What? What are you looking at me like that for?" he asked, getting defensive at the kitten's accusing stare.

A cough sounded behind him, and he span around on his haunches, falling over in the process.

"Oh, hello!" he greeted, seeing that his friend from earlier had returned. The supervisor gave the apparent employee a stern look, and the young man hurried off to continue with his duties.

"So, Mr…?"

"Black," Sirius filled in.

"Mr. Black. You claim to have been abducted last night by an intoxicated member of our establishment," the man said carefully, looking disdainfully over the top of his glasses.

"That's exactly what I'm saying. How else would I have ended up in here?" Sirius replied, a hard look in his eyes.

"Be that as it may, I have asked Steve, the officer on duty last night, to come in and confirm your claims," the manager told him. Sirius rolled his eyes.

"Sorry I'm late, sir. Got caught up," a familiar voice came from outside Sirius's line of vision – it was only when the man stepped in front of the bars that Sirius could see him clearly.

"That's him, he's the one that threw me in here," Sirius announced, watching gleefully the look of astonishment that crossed 'Steve's' face when he looks into the cell that mere hours ago, he had tossed a large, mixed breed dog into.

"What? How'd he get in there?" he asked, looking astounded. "Last night I locked up a wild dog – roaming the streets, it was!" Steve informed to a doubtful looking manager.

"You're sure, Steve. Er…had you been drinking at all?" Sirius grinned at the man responsible for his arrest.

"Well…I have had one or two…but I'm sure I caught a dog, not a boy," he defended himself.

"Hey, who are you calling a boy!?" Sirius asked, outraged on the outside, but having the time of his life.

"That's enough! Clearly there has been a misunderstanding. Now, son, we'll get you out of here, and Steve will offer you an apology," the manager interrupted.

"Oh, I don't care about any apology," Sirius scoffed, standing up as the door was unlocked. He walked confidently into the hallway, smirking triumphantly at Steve as he did so. "If that's all, I think I should be getting home, don't you?" he asked, turning to walk off. He had just taken a few steps when a tiny noise caught his ear, and he remembered his earlier promise. He looked across to the forlorn looking bulldog sitting in the cage that was across from his, and the flea-ridden German Shepherd in the cage next door. The sound came again from behind him, more insistently this time, and he turned his head just in time to see a white paw dart out of his cell. He sighed.

"Gentlemen, may I please take a look at the cats you've got on offer?" he asked politely. The manager stared at him incredulously.

"Well…certainly. Just through here, young man," he answered, opening a door. Sirius stepped into the room to be confronted by a cacophony of hissing, mewling and yowling, and he half closed his eyes in distaste.

Walking slowly along the rows of much smaller holding cells than were in the other room, he carefully scanned each one for his little friend. Finally, his eyes beheld the sight of a tail high in the air, the kitten inside obviously more interested in the wall behind it.

"Lovely view you're giving me there, mate. Not sure that's the best thing to display to give a good first impression," he spoke up. The manager gave him a funny look for talking to a cat, but Sirius didn't notice.

The kitten inside did, though, turning around quickly as though scalded. It walked confidently up to the bars, finally giving Sirius a good view. He could now see the patchy orange and black fur that he had caught glimpses of, and the infamous paw which had first caught his attention. Interestingly enough, that paw was the only white one.

"Oh, you've lost your other socks, have you?" he asked, leaning towards the cage, jerking back slightly as his friend reached through the bars to swipe at his long hair.

"Oi! Look, if there's one thing we're going to be clear on, it's that you don't touch the hair, got it?" he reprimanded. The kitten merely sat back and looked at him coyly, tilting his head on the side.

"Mr. Black. As an expression of our regret for the ordeal you've been through, would you like to adopt this animal?" the manager interrupted, making Sirius jump as he had forgotten he was there.

"Huh? Oh. Yeah. Yeah, that would be good, I think," Sirius answered, looking curiously at the cat who looked just as curiously back.

"It's always such a pleasure when our lost or stray animals can find a new home. I shall provide you with a carrier. Let me assure you that he has already had all his shots for this year, though he's not yet spayed," Sirius was informed as the man beside him opened up the cage, lifting up the miniature cat inside with one hand.

"Ah, well, no harm in that, is there?" Sirius asked, taking the creature. He held it out in front of him. "You don't want to lose your manhood, do you?" he asked, and got a high-pitched mewl in response. "Of course not…" he muttered, allowing the cat to climb onto his shoulder, where it started playing with his hair once more.

"Hey, what did I say about the hair?" Sirius asked, following the manager outside.

"I suggest you keep him in here, just for the journey home, lad. Otherwise he may get scared and disappear on you," the man told him, holding out a cat-carrier.

"Okay then. In you go," Sirius announced, carefully moving the kitten into the box and closing the wire door behind it. The kitten promptly curled into a ball and fell asleep in the corner.

"Well. Thank you for all that, it's certainly been interesting. I fervently hope we never met again!" Sirius mock saluted, before turning on his heel and marching off down the road.

* * * * *

"James, are you sure the van went this way?" Peter asked, puffing and panting while trying to keep up.

"Positive! Come on, hurry up!" James answered, turning a corner and almost bumping into Sirius for his troubles.

"Sirius!" Peter exclaimed, surprised to have found their friend so early.

"James, Peter," Sirius greeted, nodding at each in turn.

"What have you got there, Padfoot?" James asked, eyeing the carrier Sirius was holding.

"This? Oh, meet," he held up the box so that James and Peter could peer in. "Canopus!" he announced proudly.

James looked into the cage, and was quickly swiped on the cheek for his trouble.

"…Sirius…" he began.

"And we're off!" Sirius interrupted, holding the carrier securely as he took off running down the street.

"WHAT DID YOU DO?!" James' yell behind him caused his face to break into a huge grin, and he continued running as the footsteps started up behind him.


End file.
